UC EVENTS

Speakers: Dr Mary Hutchison (ANU), Dr Cathy Hope (UC) and Dr Denise Thwaites (UC)

Title: Ways of seeing Ginninderry: interpreting the changing landscape and its lived experience in a local sustainable urban development

Abstract: This talk presents examples from the material we have collected with community members and colleagues for interpretation of the natural-cultural landscape of the Ginninderry development area. It includes discussion of community and collaborative process we have used in support of diverse, inclusive and engaging interpretation, and reflects on the way this has evolved in the Ginninderry heritage and sustainability context.  Our research interests in this project concern methods of dialogic interpretation, the connection between these and sustainability intentions, and the issues of applying formal heritage frameworks to sustainable development practice.  Ginninderry is a sustainable urban development in West Belconnen that includes land across the border in NSW. 

Biographies: Dr Mary Hutchison is an honorary associate professor at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, ANU. Her research and professional interests include museum and heritage site interpretation, oral history, collaborative community research and cultural diversity.  She has a particular interest in interpreting changing times and places through the lens of personal experience. 

Dr Cathy Hope is the Coordinator of the Play, Creativity and Wellbeing Project. Cathy has delivered multiple cross-sector, interdisciplinary projects in the ACT public realm at the intersections of creativity, urban renewal, community engagement for improved people and place outcomes. Cathy was the project lead on Haig Park Experiments —a six month $1million dollar activation of Haig Park to test community aspirations for the park and inform its ongoing renewal.

Dr Denise Thwaites is an Australian curator, researcher and educator, whose practice interlaces digital and community engaged processes to interrogate emergent frames of cultural inclusion, exclusion and collaboration, particularly as they are re-imagined through decentralised technologies.  She is a member of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, and Assistant Professor in Digital Arts and Humanities at the University of Canberra, where she teaches into the Bachelor of Arts and Digital Cultural Heritage.