Hope, Cathy

BIOGRAPHY  

Dr Cathy Hope is an Assistant Professor in the Discipline of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberrra. 

Cathy is interested in the sphere of play – adult and also children’s play - as it manifests in cultural institutions, in education, in communication and in private life.  Her studies of the historical operations of Australia’s alternative cultural and media institutions trace the efforts made by these organisations to remain culturally relevant – i.e. innovative, in demand, differentiated and ‘playful’ on their own terms - within the context of shifting market forces. She has written extensively on the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, on farmer’s markets, and is currently working on the early history of Australian youth radio station Triple J.  This research offers ways of thinking about long-term organisational practice for those non-profit, social enterprise and public sector institutions that must negotiate between cultural and industrial imperatives.

Play - as intrinsic motivation, as engagement, as creative practice, as innovation, as resilience and as disruption – is at the core of Cathy’s freelance writing, research and teaching pursuits and practice.

Cathy has also worked in a freelance capacity for the Australian media. She was the chief film and travel reviewer for The Canberra Review, and has written freelance for Rolling Stone and other local and national publications. In the late 1990s she was a film programmer for The Canberra International Film Festival, and co-director of the Canberra Short Film Festival.