Abstract
Much of design teaching, learning and research in Australia is determined by Eurocentric traditions and the ongoing colonial project. In this context Indigenous Peoples continue to experience erasure, silencing and appropriation of practices and knowledges. The Visual Communication Design Program, situated in the School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), is committed to disrupting this trajectory. In this article we describe an immersive model that seeks to challenge the role of the design educator, creative practitioner and researcher on unceded Gadigal Lands in the city of Sydney, Australia. We reflect on the challenges of facilitating Visual Communication Design and Emergent Practices, for a third iteration as an online studio experience, during COVID-19 in the context of the climate crisis, bushfires and Black Lives Matter. This iteration is the result of four years of deep collaboration with local First Nation Elders, Indigenous scholars and practitioners. The research-focused studio for 180 final-year visual communication design students is led by Local Elders, cultural and research advisers with the support of studio leaders. The consideration of design-led research methods through a process that infuses Indigenous research principles builds on the longitudinal research into the role of the emplaced designer in Indigenous-led projects on Country. Our studio, titled ‘In Our Own Backyard’, provides students with strength-based design capabilities and understandings of the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples Rights (UNDRIP), Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights (ICIP) and the Australian Indigenous Design Charter. As a studio experience, the aim is to create conditions which spark possibilities for re-orientation towards relational and respectful negotiation of difference, and the capacity to action Indigenous self-determination in complex practitioner scenarios.
Highlights
In 2017 Jacqueline Gothe and Jason De Santolo began an iterative process of curriculum development for a design studio with advice from local First Nation Elders and cultural advisers Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Uncle Jimmy Smith and Nadeena Dixon
In this article we describe an immersive model that seeks to challenge the role of the design educator, creative practitioner and researcher on unceded Gadigal Lands in the city of Sydney, Australia
The aim of the initial studio was to foreground Indigenous voices, stories and texts. The outcome of this iterative approach over four years has eventuated in the reframing of design-led research methods through a process of decolonisation led by Elders, Indigenous designers and researchers
Summary
In 2017 Jacqueline Gothe and Jason De Santolo began an iterative process of curriculum development for a design studio with advice from local First Nation Elders and cultural advisers Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Uncle Jimmy Smith and Nadeena Dixon. Briefs were co-designed with Luke Pearson, founder and CEO of Indigenous X, an Indigenous-owned independent media, consultancy and training organisation; Maya Newell, the director of In My Blood It Runs (2019), a film that demonstrates the need for Indigenous-led education systems, developed a brief for students addressing the social impact campaign for the film; Elder Uncle Jimmy Smith developed a cultural heritage project with local walks and stories to provide content; scholar Kirsten Thorpe provided a living archive project with the NSW State Library collection; and Victor Steffensen, senior cultural fire practitioner with Firesticks Alliance, briefed on a visual archive project on cultural burning These projects mitigated the risk of appropriation but required considerable guidance by Indigenous project leaders and studio leaders, supported by Elders and cultural advisers to ensure professional responses to the briefs. In 2018 Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison, Gadigal Yuin Elder and Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor and their family proposed a Smoking Ceremony on her lands to bid farewell the students as they finished their three-year degree at UTS, bringing ceremony to the Gadigal Land that the University sits on. This was the first time that fire and smoke were brought in ceremony to the University’s Alumni Green (Figures 2–5), an important step in recognition and reconciliation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
