Opening of Worldglimpsing

Worldglimpsing explores two interwoven forms of creativity: worlding, the design of alternate worlds, and roleplay—the act of imagining and playing into being alternate versions of ourselves. Through a series of experimental works, the exhibition foregrounds roleplay and worlding as civic and political acts by which we imagine, rehearse, and embody the present—and the futures it sets in motion.

Photographic series, digital game simulations, participatory scripts, sound works, roleplay documentation, and immersive films invite you into worlds and roles shaped by groundbreaking artists and creatives. At the heart of all of these experiences is design—not in its conventional sense of producing objects or solutions, but as an expansive, speculative practice that leaves a mark on everything it touches. Here, design becomes a way of glimpsing worlds or reframing the one we know, including its societies, cultural behaviours, and identities.

As the curator of the exhibition, James Taylor-Foster, says: “The works and experiences in this exhibition are not offering solutions to existential problems. Instead, they are glimpses—uplifting, profound, sometimes strange—into other ways of moving through the complexities of our moment, and ourselves.”

Worldglimpsing, an exhibition in two chapters, seeks to reveal how processes of creativity are just as valuable as their outcomes. It resists neat categorisation, much like the practices it presents. It invites you to be responsive, to come as you are, to stand in the shared world that we know and feel – and to sense what else could begin.

Participants: Ayoung Kim, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Ed Fornieles with Nina Runa Essendrop, Lu Yang, Natalie Paneng, OMSK Social Club, Reinis Hofmanis, Simon Denny, Tom K Kemp, Trojan Horse, ¥€$Si PERSE / Neurodungeon, and more.

OUR BR00D by OMSK Social Club
At the heart of the exhibition is OUR BR00D: a large-scale immersive work that positions roleplay as a form of participatory design. It is a shared space in which you can join others to rehearse how we might live together, raise intelligence (both human and artificial), and negotiate responsibility when faced with ecological and technological transformation. The roleplay offers you the possibility to rehearse your choices and positions in an alternate version of the world we know.

Stepping into The Crave, you become part of an alloparenting family of humans and machines who treat care as a civic technology. Within this world lives M0ther, a caregiving AI, and Br00d, an AI baby (born on May 1, 2025, and growing right now). The work represents a unique opportunity to explore alternate versions of yourself as part of one of the most extensive roleplays commissioned by a museum.

OUR BR00D is a facilitated roleplay, which means the complete work can only be experienced with a guide. You can participate in a shorter, low-intensity experience facilitated by the museum's dedicated roleplay hosts. On select weekends, you can book to play the three hour-long high-intensity experience, facilitated by members of OMSK Social Club on site in Stockholm.

OUR BR00D by OMSK Social Club is a RGP (‘Real Game Play’) commissioned by ArkDes and Nieuwe Instituut as part of Worldglimpsing with developmental support from Shedhalle (Zürich), Callie’s (Berlin), and Haus der Kunst (Munich) as part of the Art & AI programme of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Following Stockholm, it will journey to Rotterdam in 2026.

PLAY OVERLAY by Teo Ala-Ruona, in collaboration with Pauliina Sjöberg, Tuukka Haapakorpi, and Ervin Latimer, is a performance that will be held in Stockholm on November 7, 2025. It is newly commissioned by ArkDes in collaboration with MDT with support from Zodiak—Centre for New Dance, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, and Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

ArkDes × Nieuwe Instituut 
Worldglimpsing: Roleplay and the Design of Alternate Realities is a collaboration between two national museums with a shared focus on investigating an expanded field of design. The first chapter of the exhibition, hosted by ArkDes in Stockholm, opens on October 3, 2025. The second chapter, hosted by the Nieuwe Instituut, the Netherlands Museum for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture in Rotterdam, will open in 2026.

The first chapter of Worldglimpsing includes exhibition architecture by Daryan Knoblauch, graphic elements by Jonathan Castro Alejos, and has been supported with curatorial advice from Johanna Koljonen.