It’s no secret that Minecraft has a growing younger audience, and organisers at the City of Florence have tapped into the demographic in the best way possible: through art. Kids can now star as the protagonist in their very own virtual Minecraft art show at the Museo Novecento. We’ve seen Minecraft mods do all kinds of things, but this is a first.
Want to see what else you can do with Minecraft? Check out the best Minecraft mods here.
In this unique Florence event on 20-21 May, kids will be able to create physical art and put it on display at Museo Novocento – and then the art will be shown in a virtual replica of the museum, rebuilt in Minecraft. This is all thanks to a mod made by safe space advocates Createbubbles, and Shapescape, a team of Minecraft builders.
Block by block, the city centre of Florence has been recreated in Minecraft as ‘La Firenze dei Bambini’ – part of a drive in the city to focus on educating their children. Even after the event, kids will be able to revisit and continue working on this virtual gallery.
“We will use Minecraft, the most beloved PC game in the world, to bring children closer to the art,” explains Marco Vigelini, promoter of the event. They’re even trying to get into the Guinness book of World Records for ‘First museum to let kids create artworks and exhibit them in a virtual reproduction of the museum’. Specific, admittedly, but cool nonetheless.
This isn’t the first time museums have used Minecraft to educate youngsters. The Museum of London and Tate Modern have already built Minecraft worlds to teach them about things like The Great Fire of London.
There are all kinds of ways to use games to get kids educated, but building blocks are leading the charge. Thanks, Minecraft.