Connecting

One of the great things about digital art is how adaptable it is. We can digitise a selection of your artefacts and/or specimens and add them into existing Microworld pieces.

How does it work

In consultation with Genetic Moo, objects from your collection will be selected to incorporate into a bespoke artwork. Depending on feasibility, we will visit your collection to document these items or you can provide us with photographs and video. We will then create a unique artwork for the Microworld.

Here’s an example: "Animats" in Microworld Amelia, The Amelia Scott, Royal Tunbridge Wells, 2023

A touch-screen creature builder. Visitors can combine a set of body parts into an Animat and send it into a large screen to explore the space with other Animats.

The Amelia Scott Animats has a library of body bit graphics curated from the museum’s collection of toys and animals. Swimming amongst the Animats is a cartoon Platypus inspired by the museum’s Duck-Billed Platypus.

Microworld exhibitions provide the perfect opportunity to involve everyone in digital creativity. 

Case study: Microworld at Ferens Art Gallery, 2025

Ferens Art Gallery achieved its highest ever summer audience in 2025, welcoming 65,000 visitors through an inspired blend of our Microworld exhibition and an extensive programme of creative activities. One half of the octagonal Gallery 7 became an immersive digital environment filled with ambient, interactive installations such as the Black and White Starfish and Animacules. Families were invited to relax among the creatures on beanbags while webcams tracked movement and shifted the colours throughout the space, creating the sense of being in an ever-changing digital aquarium.

The other half of the gallery, called Microlab, offered a hands-on play zone packed with science-themed activities for children. Light boxes with coloured lenses, microscopes, optical toys, circuits, and miniature lab benches sat alongside astronaut costumes, toy molecules, and fuzzy ‘microorganisms’, while Ferens Gallery volunteers guided children through the experiments. The space gave parents and grandparents the chance to spend an hour or more immersed with their children in playful, creative learning.

The neighbouring Gallery 8 contained three large full-body interactive pieces encouraging more energetic interaction. Both galleries had comfortable seating so parents could relax and enjoy watching their kids explore these new digital worlds and scientific toy kits.

In addition, the gallery's learning and engagement team planned a full summer of activities that made inventive use of the space. The programme included quiet sessions, inclusive multisensory sessions, guided tours, spotters’ challenges, drawing clubs, creature-design workshops, under-fives’ music sessions, activities for disabled and neurodivergent adults, relaxed (SEND) family workshops, coding sessions for older children run by a local coding club, and even live dancers interacting with the digital creatures. The constant variety of events attracted new audiences and encouraged repeat visits, creating a lively, buzzing atmosphere throughout the summer.

Microworld Ferens was free to visit. Ferens Art Gallery invested in the extra activities and we would recommend allowing additional budget for this when you design your own Microworld. The educational and learning teams at Ferens really brought out the best of the show.

The project demonstrated the power of combining interactive art, entertainment, play, and learning. It not only attracted people who might not usually visit museums but inspired many to return again and again — one mother told us she and her son had visited 14 times.

Please talk to our production team about how you can incorporate additional activities into your exhibition.

Image credit for case study: Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums, 2025