Image: North Carolina Museum of Art, Winston-Salem
The North Carolina Museum of Art will host the inaugural 'NCMA Games Together' on August 15, a daylong gaming festival that the museum says will bring together game enthusiasts for activities, talks, workshops, screenings, and play opportunities. The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
The museum is framing the festival as a celebration of gaming as an art form. In its announcement, NCMA said the event will highlight “the artistry and spirit of gaming” and gather participants from a range of backgrounds. The program is designed as an all-day mix of public-facing activities rather than a single lecture or performance, with a slate that spans tabletop, digital, and community-based play.
Among the announced programs is a talk with Jacob Geller, author of 'How a Game Lives'. The festival will also include video game–inspired jazz by the Turnabout Players, an introductory workshop to 'Dungeons & Dragons' led by Nick Scarff, and a screening of 'Street Fighter' (1994). The museum said local indie game developers will take part in playtests, and that visitors will have access to play tables for tabletop games and opportunities to challenge other players.
The festival extends NCMA’s programming into gaming culture at a time when museums are increasingly treating games as creative media worthy of curatorial attention. Here, the museum is not presenting gaming as a sidebar to visual art but as a subject that can support discussion, performance, screening, and hands-on participation across a single public event.
NCMA’s newsletter announcement appeared alongside updates on its exhibition 'Knowing the West', which is on view through August 9. That exhibition is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and is described by NCMA as reframing the American West not as a fixed place but as a shifting narrative, with works by artists from white, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native nations.
According to NCMA, 'NCMA Games Together' is the museum’s first gaming festival. The event is set for Saturday, August 15, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., at the North Carolina Museum of Art.
