Vanessa Alexandrakis, Review: ‘Game Worlds’ Playable Exhibition @ ACMI, Honi Soit, 27 January 2026
ACMI’s latest and current exhibition, Game Worlds, is filled to the brim with exclusive materials, playable stations, and love for the medium. A celebration of the history and development of video games and their communities.
In the introduction to the 2023 anthology, Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, Carmen Maria Machado writes:
“The memory of the game bears me through the memory of the time. But most importantly: I play. That’s the best part. In the memory, I am always playing.”
Many of the essays examine the role of particular video games played during difficult times in their lives. The writers reflect on what the games taught them about themselves, about the world, and about other people. When they write about their younger, often deeply confused or misunderstood selves, they do so with kindness and with gratitude for the games which presented characters, stories, and worlds to belong in. It’s this sort of appreciation for video game spaces that is at the heart of the Game Worlds exhibition at ACMI.