The Power of Play: How Children Can Transform Museums

For decades, play has been slowly eroded from childhood, replaced by structured activities, formal education, and adult-led interactions. But what happens when museums embrace play on children’s terms? How can institutions reimagine their spaces to allow children to lead, create, and explore freely?

At the Royal Academy of Arts, Family Programmer Lily McGuire and Play Coordinator Penny Wilson of Assemble Play have been investigating these questions. Through years of consultation, hands-on projects, and training initiatives, they have uncovered the extraordinary ways in which children can enrich and transform museum spaces.

The Diminishing Role of Play

“Play has been stolen,” Penny Wilson declared in a MuseumNext presentation, illustrating how modern childhood has been gradually stripped of spontaneous, self-directed play. Once the defining feature of childhood, play is increasingly managed, structured, and assessed, with adults directing how children should engage.

This shift has extended to museums, where children’s interactions are often framed through an educational lens—play becomes a tool for learning, rather than an experience in its own right. Wilson and McGuire argue that museums should challenge this trend and instead create environments where children can play freely, on their own terms.

Lessons from Museums and Galleries

Their journey began with consultation visits to children’s museums in the United States, where the push for structured learning had largely replaced open-ended play. In one case, a museum recognised something was missing but couldn’t pinpoint the issue. The team realised that rather than designing more interactive exhibits, they needed to step back and allow children to engage with spaces in their own ways.

A similar philosophy guided a project with a contemporary art gallery, where McGuire oversaw the creation of a play space designed by BA Spatial Design students. The goal was to transform an education space into an interactive environment, filled with loose parts that could be used in unpredictable ways. However, it was only when children were invited to engage with the prototypes that the true potential of the space emerged.

A striking moment occurred when a neglected set of plumbing pipes, originally intended for construction play, became the centrepiece of an entirely different activity. A child discovered that sand could flow through a small hole in the pipes, creating intricate patterns on the floor. This spontaneous moment reshaped how the space was used—demonstrating that children, when given the freedom, redefine museum environments in ways that adults often overlook.

Play in Public Spaces

McGuire and Wilson’s work culminated in a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and Assemble Play in 2021. Held in a London churchyard, this public play programme offered unstructured play sessions where children engaged with a curated selection of loose parts.

Unlike traditional museum workshops, where activities are predefined, Playworkers observed how children interacted with the space and adjusted accordingly. One child, James, expressed a desire for something with wheels. When a child-sized wheelbarrow was introduced, an entire transport system emerged, complete with trolley networks and complex narratives.

This initiative wasn’t just about play—it was a demonstration of how museums and cultural institutions can reclaim free play as a fundamental experience. Parents were encouraged to step back, observe, and recognise the immense creativity children bring when given the space and freedom to explore.

What Museums Can Learn from Play

Play isn’t a distraction from learning—it’s the foundation of it. Museums, as places of exploration and discovery, are perfectly positioned to embrace child-led play.

Wilson and McGuire advocate for museums to reconsider their approach to engaging young audiences. Rather than seeing children as passive recipients of knowledge, institutions should see them as active participants in shaping cultural spaces. By fostering environments that allow for self-directed play, museums can become more inclusive, dynamic, and responsive to the needs of their youngest visitors.

For museum professionals looking to embed play into their institutions, the key takeaway is simple: step back, observe, and trust in the innate creativity of children. The results may surprise you.

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Lily McGuire from the Royal Academy of Arts and Penny Wilson of Assemble Play spoke at the Museums, Games & Play Summit in March 2022.