It is called 10 000 Well Plate, and it is an online game that challenges players to compete for space in a collective drawing made from fungi. But it is also a social and laboratory experience — and, in the future, it will also become an exhibition. The initiative is by the visual artist and creator Tomás João (Nature the Artist), in collaboration with researchers Cristina Cruz, Ana Margarida Santos, Diana Pereira and Juliana Melo, from the Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (Ce3C), of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, as announced in a press release.
According to the same source, the project invites everyone to visit the platform and to claim their piece of authorship in this enormous work of art. The competition runs from November 1 to 7 (with early access on October 31 for those who subscribe to the newsletter).
In simple terms, the 10 000 Well Plate is a collective drawing made with living microorganisms (fungi). It operates like a giant laboratory canvas, composed of thousands of small spaces where the fungi will grow and shape the final work. There are 120 plates of 96 wells that, when fitted together, form a single surface with a total of 11,520 wells.
In the online game that takes place between November 1 and 7, each participant can reserve up to 46 wells (the number of chromosomes in the human genome) and chooses for each well a fungus from among four, each of them a different color. In practice, each well functions as a pixel. It is with the help of these living “pixels” that players compose names, symbols and drawings, alone or in teams.
And what happens when the game ends? The wells are inoculated in the Sciences laboratory (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon), with the fungi chosen that belong to the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium. The collective image appears as they grow. But the fungi do not remain confined to the spaces initially defined by the participants: as they grow, they surpass the boundaries of the wells and spread over the surface, gradually transforming the drawings created by humans.
“The game is a fairly faithful summary of our passage on the planet,” sums up Tomás João (Nature the Artist). “During a week, people conquer territory, draw borders, form alliances and steal resources from the neighbor, convinced that what they build will last. Then nature returns to be the protagonist and grows over everything. Any resemblance to human history is not a coincidence.”
Prize and Exhibition
For the winning team of the game there is the right to receive a photographic record of the work, printed and signed as the sole physical original (the piece is photographed daily until November 30 or until it self-destructs, and the team at the end chooses the best record for the prize).
But there is more. The last stage of this experience culminates in an exhibition that will open its doors at the National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC). It opens on November 27, 2026 at 18:00 and will be on display until January 17, 2027. This is the physical side of the game: the central piece is the plate with the 11,520 inoculated wells, inside an acrylic bell, but the show includes other interactive pieces.
10 000 Well Plate is an artistic project by Tomás João (Nature the Artist), the artist who conceived the work, in co-authorship with the Sciences researchers who monitor the cultivation and inoculation of the microorganisms – Cristina Cruz, Ana Margarida Santos, Diana Pereira and Juliana Melo – not forgetting the players who will also have their names credited in this huge and unusual work of art.
