FEMININITY HAS DETACHED ITSELF FROM WOMANHOOD - ANYONE CAN, AND DOES, PARTICIPATE.
FEMININE PLAY DRAWS ON STEPHANIE HARKIN’S RESEARCH ON FEMININE GAMES AND PLAY CULTURES. FEMININE PLAY HAS BEEN OVERSHADOWED BY TRADITIONAL THINKING THAT PAIRS GAMES WITH BOYHOOD, COMPETITION AND VIOLENCE.
CURATED WORKS FOR THIS EXHIBITION REIMAGINE GAMES AND PLAY. IT ACCOUNTS FOR THE FEMININE EXPERIENCES AND PERSPECTIVES THAT HAVE GONE UNNOTICED.
THIS EXHIBITION FEATURES THOUGHTFUL GAMES, ARCHIVAL MATERIALS FROM THE NFSA AND ACMI, AND PLAYFUL CREATIVE WORKS FROM AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. VISITORS TO THE SPACE ARE INVITED INTO A MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE AROUND GENDER, CULTURE, AND GAMES.
FEMININE PLAY IS PROGRAMMED AS PART OF THE 2024 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK.
OPENING HOURS:
MONDAY-FRIDAY: 9AM–5PM
SATURDAY: 10AM–5PM
SUNDAY: 10AM–3PM
Meet the Team
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Stephanie HarKin
Lead Curator
Stephanie is a Lecturer in RMIT University’s School of Design Games Program where she researches girls’ online cultures and feminine gaming histories. Her research philosophy is steered towards accounting for the unaccounted.
She has written for GamesHub and Creative Victoria and is a board member of DiGRA Australia. She is author of the forthcoming book ‘Girlhood Games: Gender, Identity, and Coming of Age in Videogames.’
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Xavier Ho
Co-Curator
Xavier is a design researcher focusing on the queer independent games community. He is a Lecturer in Interaction Design at Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA).
In 2023 he led Pride at Play, the queer games exhibition awarded the Good Design Award for Social Impact. Xavier received the inaugural CSIRO Medal for Diversity and Inclusion for raising awareness of LGBTQIA+ communities in the organisation.
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Jini Maxwell
Co-Curator
Jini is a curator and an award-winning videogame journalist. They work at ACMI, Australia’s museum of screen culture, where they recently curated Out of Bounds: Exploring The Limits of Videogames and Honk! Untitled Goose Game Exhibition.
Jini works as lead curator on ACMI’s centrepiece exhibition, the Story of the Moving Image, works on games exhibitions in the gallery, and commissions work for ACMI’s digital gallery.
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Mahli-Ann Butt
Co-Curator
Mahli-Ann is a Lecturer in Culture and Communications at the University of Melbourne. She is spearheading the new cross-faculty collective research group MAGPIE: Melbourne Academic Games, Play, and Interactive Entertainment.
Mahli-Ann is the lead editor on the forthcoming book collection "The Post-Gamer Turn" which builds off her research on gaming cultures.