If you'd like to learn more about the ACT Play Symposium, please email Cathy Hope on cathy.hope@canberra.edu.au.
ACT Play Symposium
12 - 14 July, 2023
Maria Reay Teaching Centre, Kambri ANU
Canberra is a place of immense possibility, with a creative community passionate about the future. It has a reputation as the ‘serious’ heart of government, but in fact, Canberrans love to play. In this fourth Play Symposium, we explored the power of play to engage with our worlds in new ways and to transform places and communities.
The University of Canberra’s Associate Professor Cathy Hope brought together an exciting mix of urban designers, place-makers, artists, thinkers and community leaders – including globally-acclaimed NZ placemaking team Gap Filler – to playfully disrupt thinking and practice.
The Symposium also explored compelling creative tools – across the real and digital worlds – to contribute to Canberra’s city’s vibrancy and wellbeing as we participate in the capital’s ‘laboratory of the possible’.
In supporting the 2023 Play Symposium, Suburban Land Agency hoped the event would bring together experts from industry, government and academia to share ideas about how to better consider how we make space – and give permission for people to play!
In creating new urban and suburban places, the Suburban Land Agency is in an exciting position to be able to influence how people play in public space and connect with their new neighbours – in our new parks and playgrounds, and in all of the places in between.
We hope these recordings of the sessions inspire you to be more playful.
Welcome to Country
Aunty Tina Brown, Ngunnawal elder
Transforming cities through creative play - Part 1
Ryan Reynolds & Kate Finnerty, Gap Filler
Transforming cities through creative play - Part 2
Ryan Reynolds & Kate Finnerty, Gap Filler
Win/Win: Cultural adaptation through play
Georgie Pollard, Emmanuela Prigoni & Leanne Thompson, Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation
Systems of Sanity: Play & Mental Health
Robin Davidson, Rebus Theatre
Introduction
Cathy Hope, UC
Activation for meaningful generational play
Georgie Pollard, Emmanuela Prigoni & Leanne Thompson, Farm it Forward and Cementa
Our big fat intergenerational play tour
Tim and Nathalie Bevitt
ACT young leaders
Kat Reed, Women with Disabilities ACT
Designing places for young people to play
Aaron Wallis, Playce
Circus and Social Changes in the ACT
Isaac Fletcher, Warehouse Circus
Introduction
Cathy Hope, UC
Unlocking creativity through neurodesign and playfulness
Jess Herrington, Deloitte Digital and ANU
The possibilities of play and gamification
Dr Kerstin Oberprieler, ThinkPlace
Play to connect people to culture and place
Dr Keir Winesmith, National Film and Sound Archives
Playing out complexity at the intersections of science, art and games
Nathan Harrison, BOHO Interactive
Bringing her-stories to life: Walking in the footsteps of Canberra’s badass women
Sita Sargeant and Lucy Dingwall, She Shapes History
Playing on Ngunnawal Country
Aunty Tina Brown, Ngunnawal Elder
Canberra Playful Storytelling Panel
Nicola Lambert (Sullivans Trail), Justin Kalinowski (Redbox Design Group), Pablo Latona (Funsmith)