Good Job Arcade

"Good Job Arcade" is a Teresa Tam led project that utilizes work and play to explore themes of asynchronicity experienced by some diaspora individuals and communities that form into nostalgia.

This project delves into a longing that is rooted in what a diaspora individual lost or never had. On one hand, those who briefly return to their familial home reminisce how they can barely recognize it: faces of people are unfamiliar, spaces reshaped, and how they can no longer see themselves being able to permanently return. On the other hand, some have only ever dreamed of places their families have existed for generations, only to be shown that these places are imaginary, far removed physically and from reality. The Arcade is a space to navigate these nostalgic places that no longer exist or may have never existed at all. Games, in their algorithmic and recursive nature, can convey complex experiences in everyday life. Playing helps the individual to escape from the anxieties of life and into the reverie of familiarity and fantasy; momentary spaces away from every day where they can feel a sense of accomplishment and belonging.⁠

In the Arcade, visitors can expect a variety of games and machines to engage with: from in-house produced video games to specially rigged claw machines to fishing to a room dedicated to heal one’s body. Visitors will have the chance to engage in all of their senses here, with many little treasures and moments to find. 

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Good Job Arcade was envisioned by Teresa Tam (BFA ’14, Media Arts), whose practice utilizes spaces and experiences that are familiar and then alters them into something a bit foreign through re-interpretation and re-creation. She specializes in digital platforms, functional installations, all things shaped in paper, and body-based exchanges and objects. She graduated from AUArts in 2014 and is one half of Yolkless Press.

She brought on collaborators to form the Good Job Team: Alia Shahab (BFA ’12, Media Arts), Danny Luong, Jack Michielsen (BFA ’14, Media Arts and AV Technician), Jadda Tsui (BFA ’18, Media Arts), Jessica Szeto, Joleen Toner (BFA ’12, Media Arts), Jordan Baylon, Pan Priebe (BFA ’19, Sculpture), and Vicki Chau (BFA ’08, Media Arts). Together, the team brings creative practices and skills in electronics, 3D modelling, sound design, installation, writing, programming, textiles, illustration, poetry, sculpture, concrete-making, graphic design, and photography. The team is made up of artists with their own varying relationships to the notion of diaspora, weaving together to form our own small community. While some collaborators call home in different regions, the team is gathered on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, also the home of Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.

Teresa Tam