How do youth use games to form connections with themselves, their communities, and their future?
This is the topic of a new video game exhibit I am co-curating which will open in winter of 2024 at the Harlem School of the Arts. Driven by the Harlem Gallery of Science (and funded by many to be thanked at a later date), this project is part of Gaming Pathways, the new option for a public pathway for a career in NYC’s gaming industry.
Since March, I have been part of an amazing team (most in the photo below), bringing together extensive expertise in museum design, experience design, youth development, and video games. (Not shown is Ashlyn Sparrow, of the Weston Game Lab at the University of Chicago)
We have worked with three separate advisory groups – area high school youth, community leaders, and game experts. Over time it became clear that the topic of CONNECTIONS, and how video games are a tool youth use to forge them, was a powerful way for us to tell a story we feel needs to be told: how youth use games to shape their lives.
Below is a teaser of what’s to come.
