GamePlay at MO Museum: playing for impact

MO Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania, continues to redefine what an art museum can be – this time by turning its attention to video games. With GamePlay, the museum presents Lithuania’s first large-scale exhibition on video games as an art form, inviting visitors to interact, reflect, and play their way through 22 striking and unconventional titles.

Since opening in 2018, MO Museum in Vilnius, the home of Lithuania’s largest private collection of modern and contemporary art, has been taking on big questions like democracy, inclusion, and stereotypes through unconventional and bold exhibitions.

Organised in collaboration with the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, GamePlay continues the conversation, exploring video games as a powerful medium of visual culture. Through the exhibition, independent developers and artists challenge familiar gaming conventions – experimenting with design, narrative, and aesthetics to address themes ranging from politics to identity, memory, and mental health.

“Video games are among the most influential media of our time,” says Agnė Kuprytė, one of the exhibition’s curators. “Yet they’re still often dismissed as mere entertainment. With this exhibition, we want to shift that perspective and show how games can inspire empathy, fuel imagination, and provoke change.”

The exhibition highlights three central approaches: games that push creative and aesthetic boundaries, games that respond to current social and political issues, and games that foster empathy through personal storytelling. From a game that explores the experience of dementia to one that simulates democratic decision-making, each work invites visitors to see – and play – differently. Whether you are a gamer, an art lover, or simply curious about how digital media is shaping contemporary life, GamePlay offers an engaging and thought-provoking entry point into one of today’s most dynamic cultural forms.

On top of this, it offers the perfect excuse to visit Vilnius and the MO Museum, which is known not just for its bold exhibitions but also for its warm inclusive atmosphere. In fact, it has been named Europe’s Most Friendly and Welcoming Museum so even if museums are not usually your thing, nothing should hold you back.

GamePlay
On display until 16 November 2025
MO Museum Pylimo str. 17, LT-01141, Vilnius, Lithuania
Hours: Wednesday–Monday 10am–8pm