Always on
This project successfully funded on 24th March 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
ARCADE: A Playable Exhibition
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim
Our exhibition ARCADE - a playable, interactive show featuring 12 artists working across tech x fine art - needs to raise £2.5k in 4 weeks!
Hi! We are Nat & Tom, aka COVEN.
An experimental curatorial platform and artist support network based in Lewisham.
We've been running free public art events that are open to all, and had a smashing success in 2025 with our first exhibition GROWING SEASON, which gave 13 emerging artists a chance to get PAID to make new risky work and show it to audiences across SE London, while also developing skills and networks.
{{{Nat & Tom, tending bar at GROWING SEASON}}}
NOW, our new exhibition, ARCADE, will be showing for an entire month in a beautiful gallery in central London at HYPHA HQ. The exhibition venue is provided for free courtesy Hypha Studios and British Land (thank you!!) but despite loads of past success with grants our avenues for outside grants have run out with only a MONTH to go before the show!
{{{ARCADE Artist Marc Blazel}}}
What is ARCADE?
ARCADE is a month-long exhibition of interactive artworks and experimental film by 12 artists working across the UK and Europe. Every work in the show is playable.
Across sculptural simulations, speculative video games, browser-based open worlds and surreal tabletop role-play, ARCADE explores science fiction, futurism and fantasy as serious artistic languages. The exhibition takes audience playfulness as a critical framework — asking what shifts when viewers are given agency inside the work.
{{{ARCADE artist Amos Nappo}}}
What your support enables
Alongside the exhibition, we’re hosting:
- A screening of contemporary Iranian moving image work organised by Parham Ghalamdar, focusing on post-1979 screen culture and daily mediated life
- A free creative networking evening
- A professional development masterclass for artists navigating the industry
- Artist-led workshops expanding on the themes and processes within the show
Your contribution supports not just a single exhibition, but a growing support structure for artists working across disciplines — particularly those experimenting with digital and interactive formats that often fall between traditional funding categories.
{{{ARCADE artist Virginie Tan}}}
Our Funding Goals
We’re being direct about what this costs and what your support unlocks.
£600 — Minimum viable show
This helps us with the essential production costs required to make ARCADE happen:
printing, installation materials, technical setup, and event materials.
At this level, we’re a lean, resourceful, art-making machine.
£1,200 — Technical integrity
ARCADE includes complex interactive and digital elements, with a lot of detail work needed to ensure audiences can PLAY to their heart’s content! Reaching £1,200 ensures the technical aspects are delivered properly and allows us to build out the exhibition more fully, rather than compromising on scale or functionality, while also setting up all our events and artists for success.
£2,500 — The full vision
This is our reach goal. At this level, we can:
– Build the exhibition out as originally envisioned
– Cover professional event photography and documentation
– Invest in a modest advertising push to expand the audience
– Offer an honorarium to participating artists
For a project centred on participation and community, being able to compensate artists, even modestly, is incredibly important to us.
{{{ARCADE Artist Parham Ghalamdar}}}
The artists
ARCADE features work by:
Amos Nappo
Floon Collective
Joe Strickland
Jim Osman
Joe Browning + Georgia Arben-Crowther
Johnny Henson
Marc Blazel
Parham Ghalamdar
Sabina Oțelea
Tom Witherick
Virginie Tan
PLUS an evening of digital Iranian post-post-post-revoluntionary cinema from artists Parham Ghalamdar, Nikta Mohammadi, Babak Ahteshamipour, Erfan Ashourioun, and Omid Asadi.
A cross-section of practices working between sculpture, game engines, film, digital space and installation.
{{{ARCADE artist Sabina Oțelea}}}
TL;DR:
If you believe contemporary art can be more participatory, more generous, and more structurally supportive of the people who make it, we’d value your support.
Back ARCADE.
Help us build the space.
Then come and play.
{{{ARCADE Artists FLOON}}}
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made