Amsterdam, Netherlands – 30th April 2026. Amsterdam-based experience design studio Imagination of Things announces the launch of Unruly Play, a curated collection of works that center play across art, design, architecture, performance and interdisciplinary practices. Now live at unrulyplay.com, the platform is both a resource and an ongoing investigation on projects that question power structures, rebuild social connections, and that use play as a method to address complex issues.
Why a collection about play?
Unruly Play reflects the studio’s extended research and practice on play as a method for inquiry, critique, and civic engagement. “Play is how we give permission,” says co-founder Vitor Freire. “Permission to challenge what’s fixed, rehearse what doesn’t exist yet, and close the distance between people who wouldn’t otherwise meet.”
By connecting works by artists, designers, and communities across decades and continents, Unruly Play is less a database than a working argument about the power of play to bridge disciplines and geographies.
“Our collaborators have always asked us where our ideas come from,” says co-founder Monique Grimord, “and the truth is that they come from references that rarely talk to each other — it can be a seesaw through a border wall or a phone booth connected to the dead. We finally decided to put them together in a place that could be comfortable with these disagreements. We wanted to create unusual dialogues and support new creative practices, and Unruly Play was our answer for that.”
How to use Unruly Play
The works featured in Unruly Play frequently engage themes of community, public space, and intimacy, and can be filtered through tags — reflecting the studio’s recurring obsessions.
Given the archive’s emphasis in participation, agency, and unpredictability, it also includes several tools designed to make the collection generative rather than passively archival:
- Shuffle mode surfaces three random entries alongside a prompt — a provocation for creatives.
- Collect allows users to select up to ten entries and generate a unique shareable link — a tool for making curatorial arguments, not shopping carts.
- A card deck mode displays any collection as a “card deck” on mobile.
- A canvas mode lets users move entries freely across a board and doodle around.
Logistics
Unruly Play is accessible online at unrulyplay.com.
Launch date: 30th April 2026.
Access: Free.
Location: Digital platform.
