The 2022 Festival of Landscape Architecture focuses on the meaning of Country and designing with Country. The program has been curated by Troy Casey from Aboriginal design agency, Blaklash Creative with support from multidisciplinary design collective LatStudios and Claudia Taborda, a senior lecturer in landscape architecture at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), as creative directors. In addition to this core team, a working group of First Nations emerging landscape architects has been pivotal in steering the philosophical approach, experiential design and curatorial direction of the program.
In the lead-up to the festival in October, Landscape Australia spoke with several members of the working group about teaching landscape architecture, slowing down our design processes, and the importance of trust in building authentic relationships with community.
Emily Wong: What are your ambitions for the upcoming festival?
Owen Cafe: We’d like the festival to provide a platform for Indigenous community and practitioners to have more agency in defining what the narrative is around designing with Country. “Blak is the new black” at the moment and everybody wants a slice, but they don’t always want to earn it.
Within that framework, we wanted to create a space for authenticity, but also flip the dynamic a little bit, in the sense that if you’re attending the conference you won’t be able to simply sit there and take this information in passively. Rather, the festival is about really trying to get people to understand the process of [designing] as being about working relationships and as an ongoing journey. I do think there’s an aura of a collective want for learning, and that learning is starting to take place. We want people to understand that the festival itself isn’t an end destination for answers, but the start of the learning process.
The second conversation in the festival program is titled, “Decolonizing thoughts: Unlearning to learn.” What, as designers, do we need to unlearn in order to move forward?
Erin McDonald: I want to say “everything to date” – unlearning and letting go of how we, as designers, currently practice design, will allow us to be open to a new meaningful process and unique protocols within the industry. To change and make an impact within a company, collective or individual, we need to be willing to acknowledge the past in order to move forward and create new methodologies with create positive impacts for community and Country.
Jordan Eaton: The pedagogy of landscape architecture with its origins coming out of Europe and how landscape architecture is taught and [framed as a discipline here] doesn’t represent the origins of landscape here which is Country. We need to relinquish the landscape ideals [that are outcomes of] a European pedagogy and reframe the collective perception [of the discipline] to prioritize Country..
There’s a general sense that the built environment disciplines – landscape architecture, architecture, urban design – are lagging behind other disciplines when it comes to decolonizing their practices. Why do you think this is – and how do we address this?
JE: Actually, I don’t know if we are generally lagging behind. There are certainly some structural issues that we are falling behind on in terms of practice, but many fundamentals of landscape architecture, for instance, concepts of ecological regeneration, putting the public interest first, and recognizing the larger systems at play, [while not] comprehensive, do represent threads of caring for Country.
OC: As Jordan said, I also don’t really think we, as a discipline, are necessarily lagging behind other disciplines in terms of decolonising. But I do think there’s a false narrative that other industries and other institutions are doing it in a way that’s correct. I believe the process of unlearning starts by reflecting and critically analyzing those structures. And hopefully that’s what this festival will start the process of.
What are some practical ways we can go about doing this that could begin right now?
JE: It’s kind of a double-edged sword, because I think the first step is exactly what we’re doing now, which is giving First Nations people a voice in conversations, and it’s an interesting time to be talking about this, given the imminent referendum. But conversely, we [First Nations people] can’t take on the entire load of what needs to be achieved here, we’re only three percent of the population. The burden must fall to the 97 percent to make comprehensive reform of industry practice. But the first step is having voices in the room to be able to have the discussion and the experience, and the next is building capacity in the industry. These voices must be First Nations as a principle and from the community, so that the projects are First Nations-led.
OC: Consultation fatigue is a huge issue across all communities, including for people like us [the working group] that are in the industry. There are a lot of people asking questions and looking for answers from us without wanting to do the work themselves to learn.
JE: As an industry, we also need a shift in perspective in terms of how we interact with space. [As designers], we usually see ourselves at the top of the ecological stack, inhabiting the surface of the land, but we should rather think about Country as being part of that system and us as being contributors to it, rather than just existing on top of it.
What do you intend practitioners attending the festival to take away?
EM: The festival is an opportunity for learning. It’s also an opportunity to close the gap and forge relationships with community. The program is a huge opportunity to start those relationships with some incredible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander professionals and grow a deeper understanding and appreciation of Country and culture. People will see the power of a room filled with strong, yet humble First Nation professionals that are going to be sharing and connecting you to our undeniably strong culture. I know people will connect deeper and hopefully shift their approach to design and be inspired to re-imagine public spaces that are connected to cultural knowledge and traditional ways that provide economic opportunities for community.
Laree Barney: My hope would be that practitioners leave the festival feeling empowered to build trust and long-lasting relationships with the community. We often underestimate the impact of just having a conversation.
EM: The industry isn’t lagging, it’s the process and togetherness with the client and budget of projects that are being overlooked. Designers and the industry are at the forefront of innovation and collaborative work, [yet] the profession and industry is often overlooked [in terms of] what values, what we bring to the table and the amount of behind the scenes work that goes into a project. The program on a project is becoming shorter and shorter – we simply can’t design appropriately with community in a short timeframe and [on a limited] budget.
It’s often easier to understand the impact of particular ways of designing or practising when you’re working on a project at the large or public scale. How should practitioners working at smaller scales, for instance, the residential, approach embedding Country into their projects?
OC: We all went to uni where we designed these big projects there, and now we all have this hopefully great moral compass and idea that we’ll improve the world and everything with this one, you know, big thing – but that’s generally not reality. That generally doesn’t happen. What people need to remember is that every single little action you take has an impact, and a thousand small things can add up to one significant thing. So the question shouldn’t be, what impact can this small project have? It’s, well what impact can the next 12 months of work of small wins have? It’s a framing and I think almost a belittling of the impact people believe they really have to think,“Well, this project is too small, it’s not worth it.” Well, I think it’s worth it every single time.
EM: As designers, we tend to think about what that outcome might be straight away, before we’ve even gone through the process. Instead, it’s important to take a more holistic approach and continue to be involved after the project is complete. [We need to ask], what’s the operation of that building or place, and how is it still contributing to community and caring for Country?
OC: I think designers tend to define and restrict themselves by their idea of their place in the industry, whether that’s their job title or experience level or whatever. But, you know, you can actually just go and do something differently. You can change the existing process. So, I suppose part of the journey we want to take people on through the festival is trying to get them to understand that. To get them to unlearn some of their limitations, in a sense.
You mentioned that designers, in rushing to embed Country into their practices, can actually end up replicating old and damaging habits, rather than moving forward from them. What do you suggest they do in order to avoid this?
OC: What people need to understand is that in this space, everything moves at the speed of trust. Our identities and our culture are not a commodity to be taken. People tend to want to rush into it, because that’s the world we live in – the world of immediate gratification – but actually they really need to slow down.
EM: Before anyone should approach “Designing with Country” they need to ask themselves, why do they want to do this? If they don’t know the answer, or if it’s because it’s in the brief, then they should not be doing it. We shouldn’t be rushing into this iteration of design methodology, again without Indigenous representation on the design team.
How does the festival program link in with issues like climate change and biodiversity?
OC: Country-centered design and Indigenous culture are built on holistic relationships as part of ecology. So, integrated thinking around climatic responses and sustainability are at the core of Indigenous land management practices. Consequently, Country-focused design becomes fundamental to how we address issues like climate change and ecological collapse.
LB: It’s imperative that we acknowledge the process of understanding environmental systems and the time and patience it takes to comprehend how they work. This is something that mob has been doing for time immemorial. We need to be mindful of what we’re actually doing, why we are doing it, and what impact that has, not just in the short-term but in the long-term. We may need to slow our processes down as designers in order to create in a more holistic way.
Coming back to what Erin was saying earlier, what’s something small that designers can do in everyday practice that might assist them in moving towards a deeper understanding of Country?
OC: People are often like, “I want to understand Country.” Well, you need to understand who you are first. Reflect on what shapes your values and your thinking, what your practice does, and what role it plays in this space. We need to think about all that before even considering starting to engaging with community. Because if you have no idea what they’re doing and why you’re doing it, then you’re really just ticking a box.
What are your hopes for the future of designing with Country?
EM: I would like to see genuine respect for “Designing with Country” from the industry. This approach can’t be done without an Indigenous designer leading the project or co-designing. The industry is heavily competitive and the approach to designing with Country is superficially applied with minimal education. To move forward as designers who play an incredibly important role in our built environment, we not only need to come together in the industry, to unlearn and reframe our approach to design, but to educate ourselves together.
LB: I hope we can reframe our commercial mentality and look to design in a more holistic way, creating in a reciprocal way with and for Country.
OC: From my perspective, it’s really a long-term thing. But realistically, my hopes for designing on Country is that it’s actually mob in these spaces, designing for/on/with Country and community. It’s that community gets to a place where there are plenty of us, rather than only three or four. In order for that to happen, we need conversations, truth telling, and ultimately, for non-Indigenous people to make space for Indigenous empowerment and the self-determination.
