V&A Dundee set to open new video game exhibition this weekend

Visitors will be able to from rarely-seen sketches and notebooks as well as storyboards, musical scores and computer codes.

Video game
Published 18th Apr 2019

V&A Dundee opens its next major exhibition, Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, this weekend.

Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt celebrates and explores the cultural importance of videogames.

It reveals how they are designed, how they are confronting issues such as politics, race and gender, and how the future of videogames is being shaped by huge online communities, as well as tiny independent studios and collectives around the world.

video game

The exhibition focuses on major shifts since the mid-2000s, when changing technology – from mobile phones to increasing internet speeds – transformed how games are designed, discussed and played.

The new exhibition runs from 20 April to 8 September.

Philip Long, Director of V&A Dundee, said: “We are delighted to be opening our next major exhibition, Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, this weekend. This is a very exciting show for anyone with an interest in art, creativity and design, as well as makers and players of videogames.

“As you walk through this exhibition you get to see how a game is designed, from the earliest sketch right through to the online communities and independent designers that are reshaping the future of gaming.

“At V&A Dundee we want to present the very highest quality exhibitions, and having such wonderful exhibition galleries enables us to create immersive, beautifully designed experiences that are really thrilling for visitors.”

Marie Foulston, lead exhibition curator and V&A Curator of Videogames, said: “It’s hugely exciting to see this new iteration of Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt open at V&A Dundee this week, in a city which continues to have such a profound impact on videogame design and culture.

“This exhibition opens up the design and culture of contemporary game design and culture in radical new ways. It celebrates groundbreaking work from a period of time that has been defined by a democratisation of both the means to make and to play games.

“Whether you come as a local game designer, a seasoned player, or are simply creatively curious, I hope you leave feeling inspired and with a greater understanding of and appreciation for one of the most fascinating mediums of our time.”

To accompany the exhibition, the museum has commissioned a new videogame that will soon be available to play on V&A Dundee’s website. Plaything is a joyous and intimate web-based game being created by Will Anderson and Niall Tessier-Lavigne, which will allow you to create a character in your browser, a beautifully hand-crafted creature that grows with you.

Visitors will able to play the game, and find out more about the process of bringing a videogame to life, at a free Family Design Day on Saturday 8 June. The game’s development has been supported by InGAME, a games innovation partnership led by Abertay University.