Channel Feature
‘It’s a game about loving humanity’: Sainsbury Centre collection reimagined in gaming project
May 2025
Art and artifacts spanning hundreds of years have been bought to life within new video games, with the help of dozens of students.
Art and artifacts spanning hundreds of years have been bought to life within new video games, with the help of dozens of students.
From 25 April to 1 May 2025, 32 UAL Diploma Game Design and Development students of City College in Norwich, aged 17+, activated the Sainsbury Centre with their newly developed computer games, for visitors to ‘playtest’.
As part of the Pixel Project, students were invited to create playable video games which incorporated objects from the Sainsbury Centre’s collection and offered new ways to see and interact with the exhibits.
In the lead up to the public playtest, associate artist Marnie Hardy introduced the students to the Centre and collections and led creative workshops in the galleries. Later, 25 of their demo games were showcased in the Sainsbury Centre’s East End gallery for our visitors to sample and offer feedback.
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Dorian Cozens, Game Design and Development lecturer at City College Norwich, said: “We encourage our game design students to look for inspiration well beyond the sphere of gaming. It has been a brilliant experience for the groups to work alongside Marnie and turn their creative interpretations of the Sainsbury Centre collections into playable games.”
Fin Matthews, 16, says, “I’d never been to the Sainsbury Centre before. It was quite cool and fun taking artefacts that are hundreds or thousands of years old and putting them into games and imagining the museum in a different way.”
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Following a radical relaunch in 2023 the Sainsbury Centre is the first museum in the world to formally recognise the living lifeforce of art, enabling people to build relationships across a dynamic and interactive arts landscape.
From stepping out of a cabinet as John Davies’ Bucket Man, to a flying as a hornbill around an island in the Pacific, the video games reimagined the Centre and its collection, capturing its lifeforce.
Students created a range of different games. From 2D platformers and puzzle games, to immersive first-person 3D environments. Plus a simulation strategy game in which you play as the art museum curator.
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Pixel Project at the Sainsbury Centre. Photo: Kate Wolstenholme
Of the wide range of objects from the collection which were selected, popular choices were the walking hippopotamus (1880 c. BC), along with the pair of Han dynasty mythical beasts.
Lindsey Mendick’s Hot Mess exhibition inspired several games, including “I think I Love You” by Rocket Wiseman. The game asks us to consider our relationship with artificial intelligence. Rocket said: “It’s a game about loving humanity, in a future where it’s long gone, from the perspective of something (a robot) that admires the human experience, and that is in love with an object that embodies it.”
Pixel Project highlights a developing strand of the School & Outreach programme which facilitates reaching young people through digital resources, as well as encouraging them to physically engage with the exhibits. Schools and colleges now have access to a virtual gallery, interactive digital models of the objects, and an augmented reality app.
For more information about the project, and links to play the games yourself on itch.io, click here.