Shaping Country
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Shaping Country Cultural engagement in Australia’s built environment Research report by Arcadia Landscape Architecture Acknowledgement of Country We recognise the First Nations People of Australia and celebrate their continuing cultural practice and Connection to Country. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we live and work, and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We thank in particular the Indigenous Knowledge Holders involved in the creation of this report and its featured projects. We recognise the spatial expertise held by First Nations people and the long-standing practice of Indigenous land management, science and architecture. We acknowledge the role that the built environment holds in shaping Country and our responsibility to improve, unlearn and repair. We are proud that we live in the country with the world’s oldest continuous living cultures, and we commit to playing our part as allies to First Nations people across Australia. Always was, always will be. Arcadia Report Title 2021 Arcadia Shaping Country 2021 | 2 Executive Summary Arcadia Shaping Country 2021 | 3 For years, the built What needs to be done on a cultural and industrial level before that environment has been used adaptation is achieved? And how exactly do we do it? This is what this as a tool for colonisation report by leading landscape architecture and urban design practice Arcadia – to displace First Peoples, seeks to examine and shift. Working closely with Dr Hromek, as well as Yuin assimilate Western identities woman and landscape architect Kaylie Salvatori, we have sought to present: and stake claim to land. • The value of an Indigenous-led and Country-centred approach to design Recent years have seen a marked shift in the industry’s • How we can increase collaboration with First Nations Knowledge awareness, acknowledgement Holders on individual projects and action towards reconciling • The importance of Indigenous representation within the industry as a our work with its context. whole But at some level we have struggled to move past • And a responsibility to ensure ongoing economic engagement with First what leading historian Mark Nations communities McKenna calls “ornamental recognition of Indigenous This is not an optional evolution Australians.” Recent changes to legislation in the NSW Government’s Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) dictate that Aboriginal “Until the processes we heritage must be protected and maintained by design professionals. This use to design our built has resulted in changes to the Design Guide for Schools and a new guide environments are adapted to yet to be released for the Healthcare sector which address the need for include community, culture Indigenous-led design. and Country,” says renowned Budawang/Yuin spatial “At the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2019 National Architecture designer Dr Danièle Hromek, Conference,” says Dyirbal gumbilbara bama architect and academic Carroll “colonisation of our spaces Go-Sam, “there was a call for architecture to reconfigure its relationship will continue.” with Indigenous knowledge, not only by necessity but also as a means of enriching the built environment. Indigeneity is now firmly on the agenda.” As active curators of space, it is our responsibility to ensure we understand our canvas. The best way to do this is by collaborating with First Peoples themselves, throughout and beyond the lifecycle of a project. To look beyond just the recent history of a site, or its current uses, and to uncover and include its true essence in our work. We hope that this report will extend beyond our corner, and spark conversations in all sectors, roles and responsibilities within the built environment. “The field of landscape architecture “If we are truly going to start is something of a front-runner in designing for this place, we need to terms of pre-reconciliatory progress, start including the longer narratives as there is synergy between our of this place – the narratives that design philosophies and the way go back to before time can be First Peoples think about and measured – in the design of the respond to the land. In our sector, place. To me, this means ensuring there is no hiding behind walls in Country is lead architect and terms of our connection to Country First Peoples are narrators and when each and every element of our interpreters for all projects – not designs interacts with a site that was, just those with perceived Indigenous and always will be, Aboriginal land.” values or relevance.” - Alex Longley, Director at Arcadia - Dr Danièle Hromek Arcadia Shaping Country 2021 | 4 Index of ideas Notes on approach and language P6 01. Engaging with Knowledge Holders P7 What gets in the way? P8 How to engage P9 02. Engaging with Country P10 Healing the land P11 Steps for Engaging with Country P12 Feature project: SHOR P13 03. Engaging with Industry P17 Achieving ‘Better Placed’ design P18 How culture impacts commercial outcomes P18 What to do when you can’t engage P19 Where to next? P19 Further reading P21 Arcadia Shaping Country 2021 | 5 A note on language Our approach First Nations People Collaboration, not consultation We’ve approached this report by Arcadia’s preferred terminology When we talk about cultural examining our relationship to all is First Nations as it conveys the engagement, we are not speaking members of the built environment – diversity of cultures found across of consultation, or simply seeking First Nations people, fauna and flora, the territory we now know as permission from First Peoples clients, local communities, the wider Australia. In addition, the choice of to do things as planned. We are industry and the concept of Country First Nations supports Indigenous advocating for deep collaboration, itself. This relational approach allows sovereignty, acknowledging the relationship and co-design to great us to explore the true barriers complex systems of governance better outcomes for projects, in our engagement with each of that are and were in place prior to communities, our sense of identity, these factors, and how we can form colonisation. and Australia’s path of reparations. deeper, more meaningful bonds and solutions that go both ways. British invasion, colonisation Not yet reconciliation Arcadia emphatically rejects Unfortunately, Australia hasn’t the softening of language when yet reached a point where “Country has a relational referring to British invasion and reconciliation feels celebratory, methodology, by which I mean that processes of colonisation. It is although we can celebrate progress. we, people, are related to all things a trend for these processes to “There can be no reconciliation through Country, including flora, be referred to as “arrival” and without justice,” said Gungalidda fauna, earth, rocks, winds, elements “settlement”, however the softening Elder Wadjularbinna Nullyarimma. – from the most diminutive microbe of language perpetuates myths “When all of these issues are dealt to the amorphous ocean. This of terra nullius and denies First with, reconciliation will happen methodology of relationships keeps Nations people their history and automatically.” everything in balance, as no single suffering endured. entity is privileged above another. This Custodianship, not ownership includes humans. The methodology of What is Country? Ownership is a Western ideal used Country can – and, I believe, must – be Palyku woman Ambelin Kwaymullina to strengthen colonial pursuits. We’ll incorporated into the methodology of says that “for Aboriginal peoples, talk instead about custodianship - a built environment design.” Country is much more than a responsibility to care for Country, place. Rock, tree, river, hill, animal, and to enable First Peoples to care - Dr Danièle Hromek human – all were formed of the for their land. We will also move same substance by the Ancestors away from talking about ‘our’ First who continue to live in land, water, Peoples or ‘our’ land as though sky. Country is filled with relations these belong to ‘us.’ speaking language and following Law, no matter whether the shape of that relation is human, rock, crow, wattle. Country is loved, needed, and cared for, and Country loves, needs, and cares for her peoples in turn. Country is family, culture, identity. Country is self.” Arcadia Shaping Country 2021 | 6 01. Engaging with Knowledge Holders First Peoples originated from Country and are therefore essential interpreters to truly knowing a place. - Dr Danièle Hromek What gets in the way? With an eons-old understanding Representation of First Nations “Time is everyone’s main issue,” of Australia’s landscape, fauna and people in the built environment says Dr Hromek. “When an industry flora, and an ongoing care for and is incredibly low. In fact, there decides that 3% of the population relationship with the spaces we are fewer than 30 First Nations now needs to be engaged and work in, First Nations people are an professionals practicing in the whole included in their work after 300 essential part of the design team. of Australia. There are initiatives years of being ignored, you can working to rectify this balance, such expect to encounter high demand Anyone already amplifying as Arcadia’s Indigenous Scholarship for very few Knowledge Holders.” Indigenous voices in the built for Landscape Architecture and We need to balance demand for environment would know that the Droga Indigenous Architecture expertise with respect for First co-designing spaces with local