Ntaria Design: A Western Arrarnta Imagining of Digital Drawing and Communication Design
Nicola St John
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Swinburne University of Technology
Faculty of Health, Arts and Design
Melbourne, Australia
April 2020
i Abstract
This thesis is about culture, representation, perception, and visual communication. It is set in the community of Ntaria, amongst the ranges of Western Arrarnta Country in the Central Desert of Australia. The research sets out to explore and reveal a Western Arrarnta imagining of communication design through the digital drawings of young adults at Ntaria School. Central to this research are 16 participants from Ntaria School and their digital drawings. This dissertation has three interrelated aims. Firstly, to explore how the introduction of digital drawing can reveal Western Arrarnta imaginings of communication design in relation to design principles, processes, and meanings. Secondly, to evaluate the teaching of communication design through design workshops according to Western Arrarnta ways of learning. Thirdly, to understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education according to Ntaria students’ perspectives and priorities.
Communication design develops visual language to convey ideas, information, stories, and messages. Foundational to this study is approaching, situating, and teaching communication design in a way that prioritises the voices, perspectives, and narratives of Ntaria participants. The theoretical framework and methodological approach interweaves youth based participatory action research processes (YPAR), the 8-ways pedagogical framework, and the capability approach. Digital drawing was introduced at Ntaria School through a series of collaborative design workshops. The iterative and adaptive approach to data collection involved interviews, card sorting tools, observations, and a self-reflection survey. Responsive to Ntaria cultural practices and on Country learning processes, it emphasised student participation in all phases of the research. Through ongoing dialogue, the methods, timelines, and educational materials were adapted to suit the realities and priorities of the participants.
The participants’ digital drawings reveal a world from a Western Arrarnta youth perspective. The main finding of this study is that a Western Arrarnta communication design process and educational approach can be used to affirm the participants’ connections with family, culture, and community. This study found that the Ntaria participants imagine Western Arrarnta communication design principles and processes in relation to their own spiritual and cultural practices, knowledge systems, and responsibilities. The participants’ spoke about the value of communication design education from their own perspectives, particularly its ability to connect to cultural knowledge, stay on Country, and share stories across generations. They are proud of their design outcomes and positive in how they represent culture, community, and their contemporary identities.
ii Acknowledgements
To the Ntaria young adults whose digital drawings are at the heart of this research, this thesis belongs to you. Thank you for showing me your Country and sharing your stories with me. I hope that I have honoured them and you. To Bowen Abbott, Latoya Fly, Ashley Lankin, Daryl Malbunka, Gideon Malbunka, Naphtalie Malbunka, Mahalia Moketarinja, Larissa Pepperill, Carol Raggett, Ashley Swan, Rakesh Sweet, Taren White, Marques Young, Lofty Armstrong, Dwight Campbell, Edrick (Junior) Coultard, Kira Inkamala, Marley Kantawarra, Stanley Kenny, Aretha Namatjira, Latrelle Pareroultja, Nelson Pareroultja, Norman Raggett, Sheila Rubuntja, Tyrone Sena, and Zenith Yamma. You slowly and patiently taught me so many things that enabled me to do this research. Without your time, trust, and friendship, this thesis would not have been possible. The design on the thesis cover is by Ntaria senior student Taren White and depicts a honey ant story.
This thesis was conducted on Western Arrarnta land. I pay my respects to the ancestors and Elders, past, present, and emerging. To the community of Ntaria, thank you for supporting this project. It has been such an honour to spend time on such beautiful Country. Thanks to Melanie Inkamala and Jeremy Moketarinja for helping me walk between two worlds within the classroom. To David Roennfeldt for all your invaluable advice and language help. This work would also not have happened without the staff and teachers at Ntaria School. Thank you for allowing me the time and freedom to learn together with the students. Particularly to Cath Greene, Cindy Bowyer, Pip Cox, Anthea Boyle, Georgie Sutton, Chris and Kerri Barr. Also special thanks to Annie Kennedy for helping me navigate the often bumpy research terrain. I am also indebted to all those who offered me a place to stay. To Trish Van Dyke, Jo Foster, Cecilia Alfonso, and Michael Watts, thank you for your hospitality, and for connecting me with the Alice Springs community.
To my supervisors, thank you for your ongoing patience, guidance, and support. To Kurt Seeman for your early contributions. To Karel van der Waarde, thank you for being there when I needed it, for your generosity, curiosity, and critical eye. Thanks for giving me confidence in my work, and its importance. To Samantha Edwards-Vandenhoek, thank you for being a driving force throughout, for your contribution, care, and consideration. For forcing me to slow down and to see things differently, and for always pushing me in the right directions—I couldn’t have
iii done it without you! This research was supported by Swinburne University’s Chancellors Research Scholarship. Many thanks also to my supervisory panel, particularly Deirdre Barron and Andrew Peters for your insightful comments and feedback at key milestones. My thanks to Dr Diane Brown for copyediting the thesis in accordance with the current ACGR/IPED national guidelines for editing research theses in Australia.
I have tremendously valued the collegiality and friendship of my PhD peers with whom I have shared this journey. You have all made this road a lot less lonely. To my friends, thanks for hanging in there and allowing me to focus on this at the expense of other things. Particular thanks to those who visited Ntaria, drove part of the way alongside me, and came to my rescue when my Suzuki broke down. Very special thanks go to Emrhan Tjapanangka Sultan who trusted me with an introduction to the Ntaria mob.
Above all, this project has taught me the importance of ramarama—family. The endless support of my family made this project possible. Thank you to Thomas for driving from Darwin to Alice Springs to take me to Ntaria before I had my license, for teaching me to drive, fixing my car, for the thousands of kilometres we have driven around the Central Desert, navigating dirt tracks, and fixing busted tyres. To my parents, Sandy and Colin, thank you for always believing that I could do this, and supporting me throughout. Thanks to my Dad for always reminding me I have the ‘teaching’ genes. Thanks to my Mum for sending me daily inspiration quotes in my final few months. If it were not for the both of you, I would not be where I am.
iv Declaration of Authorship
I, Nicola St John, declare that this thesis, completed in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Design, Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, at Swinburne University of Technology, contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other qualification at any other academic institution, and to the best of my knowledge, contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of this thesis.
Nicola St John
v Table of Contents
Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Declaration of Authorship v Table of Contents vi Notes for the reader xi
Prologue: The Red Carpet Welcome ...... 1
Chapter 1: Setting the Scene ...... 3 1.1 Introduction 3 1.2 Research question 6 1.3 Research aims and scope 6 1.3.1 Aims 6 1.3.2 Scope 7 1.4 Researcher positioning and motivation 8 1.5 Research beginnings 10 1.6 Research timeline 11 1.7 Originality, significance, and impact 13 1.8 Ntaria life-worlds 16 1.8.1 Aboriginal youth 16 1.8.2 Western Arrarnta people, language, and Country 19 1.9 Thesis structure 20
Interlude: Desert Olympics ...... 22
Chapter 2: The Research Landscape ...... 24 2.1 Scope 24 2.2 Knowledges of design 24 2.2.1 Indigenous design perspectives 25 2.2.2 Eurocentric design perspectives 28 2.2.3 Communication design knowledge 30 Communication design research 32 Drawing in communication design 33 2.3 Approaches to communication design education 35 2.3.1 Indigenous education 35 Background to Indigenous education 37 Culturally responsive approaches 37 Two-way education 39 The 8-ways framework 40 Integration of 8-ways within communication design education 42 Putting it into practice 43 2.3.2 Communication design education: The Australian high school context 45 Communication design education 45 Communication design education in Australia 46 Education in Aboriginal communities 46 Cultural approaches to communication design education 48
vi 2.3.3 Teaching digital drawing 50 2.4 The value of design for Aboriginal youth 51 2.4.1 The value of introducing visual tools 52 2.4.2 The value of digital tools 53 2.4.3 The value of digital tools for Aboriginal youth 53 2.4.4 Understanding the value of digital drawing in Ntaria 55 Key concepts of the capability approach 55 The capability to design 56 The capability approach in Aboriginal communities 57 Identifying Ntaria capabilities 59 2.5 Summary and implications 60
Interlude: Pace ...... 63
Chapter 3: Research Approach ...... 65 3.1 Scope and outline 65 3.2 Methodology 67 3.2.1 Starting with strengths 67 What are Indigenous principles and approaches? 68 How can non-Indigenous researchers apply Indigenous research principles? 69 A strength-based approach 71 3.2.2 Participatory research 73 Youth perspectives and YPAR 75 Participatory design 77 Applying a YPAR approach within this research 78 3.2.3 Researcher reflexivity 79 3.3 Theoretical underpinning 80 3.3.1 Introducing visual tools in Ntaria 81 Key factors 81 3.3.2 A Ntaria approach to communication design education 84 Centring Western Arrarnta Country 85 A relationally responsive framework 86 Embedding 8-ways in the Ntaria design workshops 88 Summary 92 3.3.3 Assessing value through capabilities 93 Applying capabilities within the context of this research 93 3.4 Data collection techniques 95 3.4.1 Stage 1: Exploring capabilities 95 Introductory group interview 96 Participant observation 97 3.4.2 Stage 2: Introducing digital drawing 97 Design workshops 98 Collecting and telling stories 99 3.4.3 Stage 3: Assessing learning and impact 100 Conversations 100 Card sorting: Design skills 101 Card sorting: Design process 102 Self-reflection survey 103 3.5 Data analysis approach 104
vii 3.5.1 Round 1: Initial coding 105 3.5.2 Round 2: Group workshop 105 3.5.3 Round 3: Research analysis and ongoing loop 108 3.6 Ethical considerations 108 3.7 Summary 109
Interlude: Connecting ...... 112
Chapter 4: The Digital Drawings ...... 114 4.1 Introduction: Imagining communication design 114 4.1.1 First impressions 115 Overview of the design workshop program 120 4.2 Underlying principles of the Ntaria digital drawings 120 4.2.1 Talking story 121 Drawing Country: Remembering and telling culture stories 122 Telling stories in new ways: Identity and Ntaria life 129 4.2.2 Sharing and connecting 135 It’s important to know the old stories: Connecting with family 136 We got to pass things on when we get older: Sharing knowledge 143 4.2.3 Newness 151 I’m not really into the cultural stuff: Current expressions 151 We are the old and the new: Surface styles 156 4.2.4 Collective principles 162 4.3 Imagining a Ntaria communication design process 163 Introduction: The five phases 163 4.3.1 Anma thinking time: That’s how I make it on my mind 166 4.3.2 Arama to see: What’s in my head is shaping up 169 4.3.3 Parnama to draw: Getting it from our head to the screen 170 4.3.4 Mpaarama to make, build, do: Waiting for printing, then selling things 171 4.3.5 Marra good: Feeling good and feeling proud 173 4.3.6 Collective imaginings 174 4.3.7 Conclusion 178 4.4 The meaning of design: Ntaria perspectives 179 Introduction 179 4.4.1 Design is a little bit different: Design in relation to creative practice 180 4.4.2 Design is creating something new: Contemporary expressions and outcomes 184 4.4.3 Designing keeps our culture strong: Knowledge, story, and design 185 4.4.4 Collective meaning 187 4.5 Conclusion 188
Interlude: Coming Back ...... 191
Chapter 5: Design Education in Ntaria ...... 193 5.1 Introduction 193 5.2 The Ntaria School context 194 5.3 Making shapes and drawing Country 196 5.3.1 Just press it with your hand: Learning new tools and techniques 198
viii Tools: Adobe Draw and Adobe Capture 198 Tools: The iPad 199 Tools: The Apple pencil 201 Techniques: Drawing shapes 201 Techniques: Tracing and colouring 203 Benefits of digital drawing 204 5.3.2 It’s too hard: Experiences with vector graphics 205 5.3.3 Let’s go fishing: Learning on Country 207 5.3.4 I can put my culture on my t-shirt: Ntaria design outcomes 211 5.3.5 Overarching perceptions 217 5.4 Purta ngkarrama: In dialogue together 217 5.4.1 In dialogue with Country 218 5.4.2 In dialogue with the Ntaria community 221 5.4.3 In dialogue with the students 223 Student-led learning 223 Exploring and discovering learning 224 Not always engaging 225 5.4.4 In dialogue with the design educator 226 From dialogue to self-reflection 227 5.4.5 Together we are learning 229 5.5 Conclusion 229
Interlude: Taking Selfies ...... 231
Chapter 6: The Value of Design in Ntaria ...... 233 6.1 Introduction 233 6.2 Ntaria capabilities and relations to design 234 Introduction 234 How capabilities were identified 234 How a capability approach was applied 235 6.2.1 We have things to say: Voice and representation 236 6.2.2 Design connects us to community and culture: Knowledge and identity 237 6.2.3 Our Country. Our Land: Staying on Country 239 6.2.4 The relevance of capabilities in Ntaria 240 6.3 The value of design in Ntaria 241 Introduction 241 Collecting data on value 243 6.3.1 Design makes us feel proud: Agency and pride 244 6.3.2 We could make our own company: Engendering enterprise 249 6.3.3 Passing on our stories is important: Transferring knowledge across generations 253 6.3.4 Reflections of value and participation 255 6.4 Conclusion 256
Interlude: The Pop-up Shop ...... 258
Chapter 7: Conclusion and Discussion ...... 260 7.1 Introduction: Chapter aims and overview 260 7.2 Answers to the research question 261
ix 7.3 Addressing the research aims 261 7.3.1 Exploring Western Arrarnta perspectives of design 261 7.3.2 Developing design workshops to introduce digital drawing 264 7.3.3 Understanding the value afforded through design 265 7.4 Limitations of the study 266 7.4.1 Issues that arose during the project 266 7.4.2 Assessing the methods 268 The consent process 268 Trustworthiness and authenticity 270 The benefits of the research to the students 273 7.5 Insights and foresights 274 7.5.1 Design research 275 Insights 275 Foresights 277 7.5.2 Communication design research 278 Insights 278 Foresights 279 7.5.3 Communication design education 281 Insights 281 Foresights 282 7.6 Final reflections 283
Epilogue: Running a Design Workshop out Bush ...... 285
References ...... 287
Appendix 1: Visual tools and Aboriginal communities ...... 313 Appendix 2: Ethics approvals, informed consent, and research information sheet ...... 328 Appendix 3: Ntaria design portfolio ...... 333
Publications and presentations ...... 334
x Notes for the reader
This research prioritises Western Arrarnta language, concepts, and perceptions of communication design. As such, notes on terminology and style are included here to support and guide the reader.
Terminology
The terminology presented below provides detail and context. It is not presented alphabetically because several entries incorporate preceding terms. Terms related to country and identity are listed first, beginning with the local and emphasising the importance of place. Terms related to Indigenous concepts follow. Specific terminology in relation to design is then discussed and how these are understood within the context of this project.
Western Arrarnta: The participants of this study self-identify as either being Western Arrarnta or Aboriginal. Arrernte, pronounced as ‘Ah–runda’, refers in official and academic writings to Arrernte speakers who inhabit the Central Desert, extending from the Finke River in the west to the Simpson Desert in the east. The usage of Arrarnta/Arrernte orthographies has largely developed alongside literacy practices (see Kral, 2000). The German missionaries used the spelling Aranda, whereas the spelling of Arrernte has largely been developed, accepted, and used within school, employment, and Christian literacy practices across the Central Desert (Kral, 2000). Yet the Western Arrarnta community feel they haven’t been adequately consulted. There has been a growing desire amongst the Western Arrarnta to use their desired spelling of Arrarnta and not Arrernte. Thus, this is the spelling used within this thesis.
Ntaria: The majority of Western Arrarnta people live in Ntaria, pronounced as ‘Nthareye’, which is also known as the township of Hermannsburg and surrounding homelands (see Figures 1.1 and 1.2). Ntaria is home to extended family groups with clan and totemic associations to Western Arrarnta Country. While participants in this study used both names when referring to the township, the traditional land name of Ntaria will be used throughout this dissertation to refer to Hermannsburg and surrounding homelands.
xi
Figure 1.1: Map of Australia showing Ntaria in the Northern Territory
Figure 1.2: Ntaria Aboriginal lands showing boundaries of land trusts. Ntaria includes the township of Hermannsburg and surrounding homelands (or outstations) within the land trust (based on Hardy, Megaw & Megaw, 1992)
xii Aboriginal community: Ntaria is referred to as an Aboriginal community, not a remote community in this thesis. Ntaria is classified as a ‘remote’ or ‘very remote’ community within Australia. The use of this language and geographical classification has many political implications, such as access to services and government funding (ARIA, 2001). For the students, Ntaria is the centre of their world and is therefore anything but remote. Western Arrarnta Country and culture is intrinsically linked to the students’ identity, and classifying this Country as a ‘remote’ place presents terminology in contrast with students’ lived experiences.
Aboriginal: In this thesis ‘Aboriginal’ is the term used to describe Indigenous Australians who are not of Torres Strait Islander descent. This research recognises that most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people prefer to be known according to their language and cultural identity, such as Koori, Nunga or Yolngu (Janke 2002; National Health and Medical Research
Council, 2018). Local language and cultural groups have therefore been prioritised. However, it has sometimes been necessary to refer to multiple language or cultural groups, particularly when referring to multiple Aboriginal communities that make up the Central Desert region of Australia.
Indigenous: The term ‘Indigenous’ is used within this thesis when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The use of this term has been derived from the AIATSIS Ethical Publishing guidelines, which propose ‘the term Indigenous can be used to encompass both Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people, though preferably not for one or the other when it is known which group is being spoken about’ (2015). There are other authors quoted in the thesis who use the term ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ and I have respected that choice by retaining those words when quoting their work. Moreover, when Indigenous has been used, it refers to an Australian context, unless directly noted, where other Indigenous groups in other geographical locations are referred to.
Cultures and Knowledges: As Indigenous culture and knowledge is not homogenous across Australia, the plural usage of cultures and knowledges is used within this thesis to indicate a variety of voices and perspectives. When referring specifically to Western Arrarnta culture or knowledge singular usage is applied.
Country: Within this thesis, Western Arrarnta Country is referred to with a capital to distinguish it clearly from other notions of country. For Indigenous people more broadly, country signifies a
xiii place of belonging and it defines responsibilities for the conduct of kinship relations. In common usage, it is called ‘country’ and not ‘the country’. The unity of people, place and knowledge within Aboriginal understandings of country are illustrated by Deborah Bird Rose (2000):
In Aboriginal societies knowledge is land-based; personal authority, personal achievement, the authority of seniors, and the integrity and autonomy of local groups depend on the control of knowledge through restrictions on its dissemination. Knowledge … is identified with country. It points to country and to relationships between the possessor of knowledge and the country to which it refers. Performance of knowledge (through song, dance, story, history and use of country) is a performance of identification and responsibility: it marks the person as one with rights and responsibilities to that country. (p. 41)
Dreaming: Western Arrarnta relationships to land are understood in the context of altjirra—the process of creation. This body of knowledge is maintained and expressed through stories, which recount and describe the relationship between Aboriginal people and their spirits.
Originating from the Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara term, tjukurpa is most commonly used in non-Aboriginal usage of the term. In Western Arrarnta the term altjirra is used. Participants in this study use both terms, as well as the English translation ‘dreaming’. Altjirra implies a set of responsibilities to the land and a relationship to one’s ancestors as well as a relationship to the land of one’s ancestors.
Young adults: The people involved in this study chose the names they wished to be referred to. At times it was necessary to refer to the collective ‘group’. When referring to the learning environment and activities conducted at Ntaria School, I refer to the participants as students. Outside of the school context, I refer to the participants as young adults. This is a deliberate and respectful choice. When boys pass through a traditional ‘coming of age’ ceremony, commonly around age 14, they become men within Western Arrarnta culture. Referring to them as ‘boys’ following this ceremony is considered offensive. Therefore, the participants in this study (ranging in age from 14 to 18) are referred to as young adults.
Art, design, and technology: This thesis calls for a reconceptualisation of the notions of art, design, and technology to provide understandings from the perspectives of the young adults from Ntaria involved in the project. In Ntaria, as in many other Indigenous cultures, activities
xiv such as dance, sand drawing, rock and body painting, making implements, and weaving baskets are not considered to be separate activities, that could be collectively referred to as art or design. These activities are considered part of daily life, sharing knowledge, and/or the regeneration of dreaming stories or cultural events. Therefore, while I acknowledge the duality of attempting to classify the Ntaria digital drawings as communication design, I am not seeking to categorise them—but rather to reframe current understandings of communication design and communication design education in relation to Western Arrarnta perspectives.
Aesthetics: Western Arrarnta language does not include any words pertaining to aesthetics, nor do visual standards exist within a Western Arrarnta environment. Consequently, this thesis attempts to use inclusive terminology when discussing the Ntaria digital drawings, so as not to impose Eurocentric understandings and judgements of the students’ visual outcomes in relation to notions of aesthetics, standards, principles, et cetera, which all stem from outside Western Arrarnta language. However, this is tricky ground, as most design research vocabulary is based on comparison, or a two-culture rhetoric—that of ‘accepted Eurocentric understandings’ and that of ‘other cultural approaches and outcomes’. The thesis attempts to move beyond these comparisons, and instead focuses on relaying the narratives of the students, their digital drawings, and their experiences of communication design education.
Design: A typical strategy for much of design research is to specify a working definition of design to suit the purpose of the study. However, within a Western Arrarnta worldview, there exists no direct language translation for ‘design.’ Consequently, this research seeks to cultivate knowledge and reveal understandings about Western Arrarnta design, education, and practice that evolved throughout the ‘doing’ of the study. It seeks to ultimately provide an understanding from the perspectives of the young adults from Ntaria involved in the project. Throughout this thesis, an evolving definition is used as details about the characteristics of Ntaria design are revealed over the course of the investigation.
Communication design: For the purposes of this study, communication design is described as both an activity and a field within design, which through the action of visual communication, influences peoples’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (Frascara, 2004, p. 2). Communication designers use visual forms to express ideas, the production of visual images being central to communication (Crilly, Blackwell & Clarkson, 2006). In this research, communication design
xv encompasses the disciplines of both graphic and communication design, as Richard Buchanan (2001) writes:
Graphic design grew out of a concern for visual symbols, the communication of information in words and images. That the name of this profession or area of study has changed over the years only serves to emphasize the focus: it has evolved from graphic design, to visual communication, to communication design. Initially named by the medium of print or graphical representation, the introduction of new media and tools, such as photography, film, television, sound, motion and digital expression, has gradually helped us to recognize that communication is the essence of this branch of design, independent of the medium in which communication is presented. (p. 10)
Communication design examines the way visual language can be used to convey ideas, information, stories, and messages. This thesis thus seeks to explore and reveal a Western Arrarnta perspective of communication design.
Eurocentric design: Refers to the terminologies, understandings, process, commercial industries, aesthetics, and approaches to design education that stem from European systems of knowledge. Eurocentrism (also Western-centrism) is a worldview centred on and biased towards the Western world (Hobson, 2012, p.185).
Digital drawing: The term digital drawing is utilised in this research to refer to digital visual techniques and within the context of this research, the specific use of vector graphics. Digital drawing occupies a place between illustration, commercial, applied or graphic art, computer graphics, digital and communication design. The term ‘digital drawing’ is rarely mentioned within scholarly texts, but is a commonly used term and practice by design practitioners and educational institutions, such as illustration, digital art and more broadly, communication design. Yet it is important to distinguish digital drawing from digital art and illustration. Illustration employs both analogue and digital visual techniques such as mixed media collage, photography and photo manipulation. Most discussion on digital drawing occurs under the umbrella of ‘illustration’.
Vector graphics: This study introduced the Ntaria young adults to digital drawing, specifically using vector graphics. The term ‘vector graphics’ which relates specifically to visual images and visual communication will be used within this thesis. However, ‘vector’ is used more broadly
xvi across mathematics, physics, and biology as well as in fields of computer science, design, art and animation, presenting a cross-disciplinary digital tool. Vector graphics are composed of a number of primitive geometric objects such as points, lines, shapes, and polygons. Vector graphics were chosen as the digital drawing tool to introduce in Ntaria due to their many benefits, including:
(1) Scalability: Scaling vector graphics means changing the mathematical properties of the objects and not the objects themselves, and therefore quality is not lost as a result. In comparison fixed-point (or bitmap) graphics are constrained to a particular resolution, meaning that when they are scaled up the quality is lost (See Figure 1.3).
(2) Manipulability: Made with points and paths, vector graphics typically combine several vector objects inside one graphic. Points connect line segments, which can be open or closed objects that have a colour fill or colour stroke. Curved line segments have directional handles that allow manipulation of the curve (DiMarco, 2011).
(3) Application: Vector graphics are in constant and agile evolution and are extremely explorative—there is usually more than one way to perform a technique, and discovery of new methods or shortcuts is common among even the most experienced users.
(4) File size: Their relatively small file size additionally allows for digital transfer across often slow and unpredictable internet connection—often the reality in Aboriginal communities.
Figure 1.3: The figure showcases the difference between bitmap and vector graphics, particularly in regards to their scalability (Dignitas Digital, n.d.)
xvii Style
This thesis follows APA style guidelines. However, stylistic liberties have been taken to
distinguish voice. For example, quotes from the Ntaria young adults are presented in Meta Pro
sans-serif in orange. Western Arrarnta words used in the thesis are also included in Meta Pro
sans-serif in red. Indigenous language words (outside Western Arrarnta), and the language and cultural identity of Indigenous scholars (such as Wiradjuri or Kamilaroi) are presented in Meta
Pro sans-serif.
The main text of the thesis is presented in Meta Pro serif. Quotes from other scholars are in Meta Pro serif italics. The researcher’s personal voice appears within the prologue, interludes, and epilogue of this thesis, which are further detailed in section 1.7. These personal first-person narratives are differentiated by their page colour and present the personal transformation of the researcher through the research journey.
Changes to APA style guidelines have also been applied, allowing for improved typographic spacing and enhancing the visual presentation of the thesis. These include:
• A list of figures is not included within the front matter of the thesis. The figures appear within the context of the thesis, and are numbered according to their position within the chapters.
• Headings are not centred, but instead follow a consistent structure to highlight the relevant hierarchy.
• Double quotation marks are not used within this thesis; instead single quotation marks are used to quote others’ work, introduce a word or phrase as a coined expression, an ironic comment, or to give emphasis. Italics are aso used to distinguish quoted material.
xviii Prologue: The Red Carpet Welcome
Figure 1.4: The service road to Ntaria. Driving along the red dirt. April, 2017
I only obtained my driver’s license a few weeks before my departure. The lack of any public transport in Central Australia required I (finally) learnt to drive. With my newly purchased secondhand Suzuki Vitara, and my fresh P plates, I drove 2,500kms to Ntaria over five days, camping out along the way. The journey to get here (including all those hours of driving lessons, setting camp fires, and fixing flat tyres) felt in its own way substantial. Ntaria was physically and culturally so far away. My arrival felt like a momentous achievement, well, to me anyway.
The road to Ntaria traverses across stunning landscapes. The roads are framed by ridges and valleys of purple ranges and rippling hills. In Ntaria, Mount Hermannsburg dominates the skyline, transforming from deep purple to glowing red as the light changes throughout the day.
Just getting to Ntaria required a lot of time, change, and sacrifice from my usual comfortable existence in the city. I left Melbourne to begin my fieldwork, not understanding I wouldn’t be truly
1 home for over 12 months. I didn’t realise I would ultimately make this trip, from Melbourne to Ntaria four times over the course of my research. I clocked up the kilometres, bought new 4WD tyres, and got comfortable on long days on empty highways. This distance came to feel like travelling through a physical and cultural divide—the closer to the Central Desert I got, the more I needed to adjust to Western Arrarnta priorities and Western Arrarnta time. When I arrived home I realised that the red dust from the Desert would never truly leave me, or my trusty Suzuki Vitara.
Northern Territory
Ntaria
2,500km
Melbourne
Figure 1.5: The journey from Melbourne to Ntaria. Figure 1.6: Me and my Suzuki on arrival in Ntaria
It has been such an honour to spend time on Western Arrarnta Country with people who know that Country so intimately, who are keeping their cultural traditions alive, who are speaking and teaching their language, who make the most of what they’ve got, and who value family, Country, and community. The resilience and creative force of the Western Arrarnta permeates this research, as it continues to flood the dusty red dirt community of Ntaria.
2 Chapter 1: Setting the Scene
We are learning. Getting new skills. We are designing and making our own things. It’s important for people to know our culture. To respect our culture. To respect us.
1.1 Introduction
The representation of Indigenous peoples, cultures, and knowledges within contemporary visual communication in Australia requires consideration, attention, and reaction as damaging, stereotypical, and oversimplified representations continue to be designed by others. The lack of Indigenous voices, coupled with fears of misrepresentation, and an absence of information on appropriate use of symbols and images has meant Indigenous perspectives have largely been ignored, silenced, and marginalised in visual depictions of their cultural identities. This research is based on the premise that questions of Indigenous representation in relation to visual communication must be answered by Indigenous people—requiring creation, construction, and control over their own imagery. The inclusion of Indigenous voices and values within Australian visual communication is emerging and developing (see for example Edwards-Vandenhoek, 2016, 2017, 2018; Kennedy, 2015). The standpoint underpinning this thesis is that Indigenous imagery and expressions of agency, cultures, and knowledges could provide a potential approach to addressing questions of representation within Australian visual communication.
Positioning Indigenous visual representation as a starting point for this research necessitates some contextual choices to provide focus and facilitate investigation. Firstly, Indigenous voices and perspectives must be prioritised. Secondly, visual tools to construct and create contemporary visual communication are required. Thirdly, communication design provides a disciplinary foundation and context for explorations of contemporary visual communication. Fourthly, the creation of visual communication necessitates the teaching and learning of contemporary visual tools. These initial considerations inform the scope of the research, its approach, and overarching aims. I argue in this thesis that if Indigenous people are to develop, create, and control their own representations within a visual communication context, they must also be able to prioritise their own processes, visual principles, and pedagogical approaches.
This study focuses on Western Arrarnta perspectives, namely young adults from Ntaria, an Aboriginal community in the Central Desert of Australia. My research seeks to investigate a Western
3 Arrarnta imagining of visual communication and representation. It explores how Ntaria young adults could utilise visual communication to enhance storytelling, relationships, and to express their contemporary identities. To understand Ntaria representations, binary categories of past and present, strange and familiar, and traditional and modern require reconfiguration. An unravelling enables a space for young adults to express their contemporary realities, and to explore their own representations. This research investigates the enduring visual culture of Aboriginal young adults as their lives become increasingly mediated by digital technologies and global connections. I argue that cultural representation is a living entity, combining both past and future in a fluid exchange.
The rich history of Indigenous visual expression and the introduction of visual tools within Central Australia also inform this study (see Appendix 1). Practices emerging from introduced tools, such as watercolour, acrylic painting, pottery, film, and new media have become sites of agency, resistance, and importantly expressions of self-determination for Aboriginal people (Eglash, 2004; Verran et al., 2007). The introduction of visual tools and mediums afford new forms of meaning making and expression, subsequently leading to sustainable, remote economic participation within many communities (Woodhead & Acker, 2014). This research focuses on digital drawing, specifically working with vector graphics as a contemporary tool within visual communication. Digital drawing allows for different creating, making, sharing, and viewing. While digital drawing is akin to drawing in sand, on a body, or on canvas, it is purposely different, as digital manifestations require the use of different tools, and techniques. Drawing digitally also produces new kinds of experiences, processes, and outcomes. It creates the opportunity to connect, as Jennifer Deger describes, the ancestral and the digital (Deger, 2006).
Representation is of particular relevance to the field of communication design, as designers are required to make decisions around the use of visual cultural material on a regular basis. Yet within the context of this research, an understanding of communication design principles and process based on Western Arrarnta perceptions is required. Visual communication from Ntaria has the potential to reveal considerably different understandings of communication design. Within broader design disciplines, Indigenous voices are beginning to be heard in Australia (see for example Kombumerri, 2010; Page, 2012; Sheehan, 2011). Yet the powerful cultural, spiritual, and relational dimensions that lie behind many Indigenous visual expressions have attracted little interest within communication design. These increasing voices suggest the need for communication design to further explore Indigenous perceptions, principles, processes, educational approaches, and to promote Indigenous representations.
4 The introduction of digital drawing in Ntaria required understanding how teaching and learning is mediated by Western Arrarnta ways of being, knowing, and doing. This necessitates a re- conceptualisation of communication design education based on local cultural perspectives, priorities, and aspirations. Teaching and learning communication design in Ntaria enables an exploration of how a digital drawing tool can maintain sameness (a connection to knowledge, story, history, culture, and family), while being engaged with difference (representing the contemporary identities and influences of Aboriginal young adults). In this thesis I argue that communication design education could work to support the fluid nature of culture.
My study draws from the experiences and outcomes of 16 Ntaria school students as they learnt to draw in a digital way. Prioritising the students’ digital drawings and narratives, I examine how a group of Ntaria young adults imagine digital drawing within their own life-worlds, and gauge the value of communication design education within their community. This thesis aims to demonstrate the potential for student agency, pride, and wellbeing, through design educators working together with Aboriginal young adults. Where the experiences, aspirations, and perspectives of Indigenous youth have been historically silenced, my research endeavours to draw upon digital drawing and communication design education to capture and promote these representations of Ntaria young adults. The Ntaria digital drawings invite us to see a world through the prism of Western Arrarnta young adults and their lived experiences.
So while this thesis is about visual communication, it is primarily about Pmara—Country, ramarama—family, wuma—listening, arama—seeing, and altjirra—dreaming. Ultimately, this project was about getting to know people, sharing and helping them to do what they want to do.
5 1.2 Research question
The central research question is:
How do Western Arrarnta young adults imagine and make meaning from digital drawing and communication design education?
My research investigates the introduction, meaning, and value of digital drawing and communication design education to Ntaria young adults. In particular, I examine what young adults are revealing through their digital drawings about Western Arrarnta design principles and process, communication design education, and associated values. The question aims to prioritise the knowledge and experiences of young adults from Ntaria, centring on the students’ voices, perceptions, and identities.
1.3 Research aims and scope 1.3.1 Aims
The central research question is addressed through three interrelated aims:
(1) To explore how the introduction of digital drawing can reveal Western Arrarnta imaginings of communication design in relation to design principles, process, and meanings.
(2) To evaluate the teaching of communication design through design workshops according to Western Arrarnta ways of learning.
(3) To understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education according to the Ntaria students’ perspectives and priorities.
The first aim focuses on an exploration of the Ntaria young adults’ digital drawing experiences. Exploring the students’ imaginings, including their principles, processes, and meanings might present new ways of seeing and understanding communication design. The students’ imaginings could reveal how digital drawing can fit within established cultural, social, and spiritual practices in Ntaria, while presenting an alternative to Eurocentric understandings of design principles, process, and meanings.
6 The second aim explores the different ways of introducing digital drawing to Ntaria School. Eurocentric design approaches, pedagogies, and curricula might not be optimally suitable. Activities based on specific Western Arrarnta ways of being, knowing, and doing are likely to lead to alternative approaches to teaching communication design.
The third aim focuses on evaluating the value of digital drawing, and associated teaching and learning from the perspectives of the Ntaria students. Learning to draw in a digital way has the potential to expand the scope and outcomes of Western Arrarnta visual representation, while enabling students to engage in enterprise development and economic participation.
1.3.2 Scope
This thesis presents the journey of learning digital drawing in one Aboriginal community. The focus is on developing an understanding on how digital drawing can be introduced within an Aboriginal school through a collaborative and participatory approach to learning communication design.
Limitations and constraints
The specific focus of this research is on participants’ perceptions, learnings, and outcomes as they pertain to digital drawing and communication design education. My research does not cover any broader social or cultural developments of young adults in Ntaria who participated in the study. This thesis explicitly focuses on how Western Arrarnta young adults use and apply the tool of digital drawing from a visual perspective, to make meaning, tell stories, and express their identities. Thus, the research does not cover how Western Arrarnta young adults use the tool of digital drawing from a technological perspective, such as their competencies, speed, or troubleshooting.
This research looks specifically at the use of vector graphics as a digital drawing tool. It does not include or consider the use of any other digital tool or application. Additionally, it is not concerned with providing insights on the actual tool (vectors), software (Adobe Draw, Adobe Capture and Adobe Illustrator), or hardware (Apple iPad and Apple iMac). Reference to software use is not covered.
As my research project is situated in Ntaria, specific approaches to introducing digital drawing are narrowed to looking at communication design education and Aboriginal pedagogical frameworks. This is not extended to examining global Indigenous approaches to design or broader educational frameworks. Furthermore, the research is conducted in Ntaria School, with the focus on design
7 education within a high school context. It does not therefore draw on educational frameworks and curriculum within higher education.
My research focus is on developing understandings of how digital drawing can be introduced through collaborative and participatory approaches. I do not set out to create or develop a curriculum or pedagogical framework for Aboriginal communication design education in Australia. Nor do I develop a guideline for developing communication design enterprises or commercial outcomes from educational programs.
1.4 Researcher positioning and motivation
To help explain how the study has been positioned and approached from the perspective of a non- Indigenous researcher, it is important to articulate ‘who I am’ and ‘where I am from’ (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003). As Absolon and Willett (2005) argue: ‘identifying, at the outset, the location from which the voices of the researcher emanates is an Aboriginal way of ensuring that those who study, write and participate in knowledge creation are accountable for their own positionality’ (p. 99).
I begin my engagement with the Western Arrarnta community as an outsider. It is important to acknowledge my own positionality, power, and knowledge construction in relation to those being studied and to stress my cultural, social, and linguistic background, as well as my lived experience being vastly different to the young adults from Ntaria involved in the research (Milligan, 2016). I am a non-Indigenous female, with Irish and English heritage, born in Nowra in the South Coast of New South Wales. The value of education has been strongly advocated within my family, with my father a high school teacher, and grandmother, grandfather, as well as numerous aunties, uncles, and cousins working as teachers across primary, secondary, vocational, and higher education contexts in Australia. Yet Indigenous histories, knowledges, and perspectives have largely been ignored and absent from my own education. Across a bachelor’s and master’s degree my communication design education was embedded in Eurocentric principles and practices, which has been mirrored in the majority of my experiences in profession practice. I also enter this research space aware of the ongoing silencing of Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing within academic research and the legacy of research grounded in the theory and history of colonisation.
From the outset of this study I held a view that the voices and representation of people matter—that Indigenous people should be in control of their own representation within communication design. This also was a belief, or a moral standpoint, that people’s voices matter. These considerations
8 influenced how I positioned my study and the questions being asked. I therefore begin the discussion of my standpoint for this study with a brief description of the experiences that shaped my values and how they have shaped how the study has been positioned and approached. I acknowledge the limitations or disadvantages of my ‘outsider’ status within cross-cultural research and am aware of the nuanced nature of how my values, perspectives, behaviours, beliefs, and knowledge may influence the research (Banks, 1998).
My position began with my view that Indigenous people should be in control of their own representations, particularly within design and visual communication. How people represent themselves and their culture, presents a visual manifestation of their voice and identity, and produces knowledge that is both socially useful and politically powerful. This project was shaped by my experience and professional practice in communication design, working with community development organisations, not-for-profits, and social enterprises. The research focus grew out of conversations and connections with a group of former Aboriginal colleagues, now friends. Through working together on communication design projects I became aware of both the lack of Indigenous voices within Australian communication design and protocols around utilising Indigenous content within design outcomes. My research stemmed from these experiences in practice, questioning how we can work together to increase Indigenous narratives and representation within Australian communication design.
Coming to the research, I brought with me experiences of working cross-culturally within design contexts across Peru, South East Asia, India, and America. I had seen many different examples of how culture and representation are shaped within communication design and how people’s experiences are seen and understood. After working at this grassroots level to ensure these groups had a voice, I transitioned into a larger context at Oxfam, one of Australia’s largest not-for-profit organisations.
Within my role working in the design studio at Oxfam Australia from 2013 to 2015, I was often presented with project assignments asking me to graphically represent Oxfam’s Indigenous programs. There were no frameworks in place, nor any consultation on how Indigenous people wanted to be represented. My time at Oxfam revealed a distinct lack of Indigenous communication designers working in Australia.
As my role within Oxfam changed and I moved towards working with social enterprises under the retail arm of the Oxfam Shop, my understanding of design as a tool for community development and
9 economic participation developed. Here I was introduced to social change processes and the impact of social enterprise, economic ownership, and development for marginalised groups worldwide. Working with established Aboriginal social enterprises I could see the potential of what digital design skills could offer an enterprise approach, and the potential market currency of Aboriginal design outcomes. My standpoint developed from these experiences: that Indigenous people should have the opportunity to represent themselves in the way they wish to be represented.
My experience had shown me that who is represented, who is creating cultural representations, and whose voices are being heard matters. Having observed and been part of design projects that have graphically represented diverse culture, I was therefore drawn early in my study to a positioning as an outsider who sought to give voice and prioritise the perceptions, voices, and lived experiences of the Ntaria young adults (Denzin 1989, 1997; Denzin & Lincoln 2005).
The dynamics and complexities of engaging as an outsider within Indigenous research are suggested by Blix (2012), as being ‘continuously negotiated, unfinalised, and open-ended’ (p. 179). She further notes that both the researcher and the participant identities and positions ‘are framed and shaped, facilitated and inhibited by the broader stories and discourses in a particular context’ (p. 177). That positions are negotiated through action and reflection (Milligan, 2016). As Gillies asserts, ‘there is no correct answer to the question, ‘Am I insider, outsider, or both?’ Rather a more appropriate question is: ‘Am I open to learning about and honouring indigenous knowledges in respectful ways?’ (cf. Kovach et al., 2013, p. 504). This is furthered by Olsen (2016), who observes the ‘[i]mportant ideals for research in indigenous studies are reciprocity, humility and relationality’ (p. 2). The negotiation of my ‘outsiderness’ and positioning within the research was enacted through a process of negotiation with the participants and is reflected in my personal journey through the research (see Interludes). These reflections acted as a reflexive strategy to assess ‘the influence of the researchers background and ways of perceiving reality, perceptions experiences, ideological biases, and interests during the research’ (Chilisa, 2011, p. 168).
1.5 Research beginnings
The research project was developed in consultation with senior students and staff at Ntaria School. My introduction to the community and school was through an Oxfam colleague, who had both family ties to the area and was a friend to the School principal. This connection and introduction was imperative. Having an advocate enabled my relationship with Ntaria School and the wider
10 community to be based on trust. Yet the School would not let me run a project unless the students actually wanted to learn digital drawing. This required engagement and relationship building from the outset.
An initial visit was undertaken in September 2016, spending two days in Ntaria to introduce myself and to begin conversations. Much of this time was spent chatting to students and staff, becoming known, listening, and slowly developing a plan with them around what the Ntaria young adults would be interested in learning, and what would benefit them. This was about understanding the students’ aspirations, and what benefits and knowledge I could bring, based on what they wanted to learn in their community.
It was clear the students were interested in digital modes of expression. The school was equipped with a plethora of technology, but staff members were not sure how technology could be useful in a learning or creative environment, except for downloading pre-designed educational games. The design workshops for this study were formed from these conversations with students and staff. An initial design approach was developed, approved and signed off by Ntaria School and the Northern Territory Department of Education.
1.6 Research timeline
My fieldwork began in April 2017, originally planning a six-week design workshop program. I then planned to return to the community to complete the evaluation of the design workshops within a few months. Yet when I arrived, I quickly realised my original timeline was unrealistic. What resulted was over twelve months of engagement. As detailed in Figure 1.7, there were times when the project was suspended, due to community requirements surrounding ‘sorry business’. This is an expression mostly adopted to refer to a period of cultural practices and protocols conducted around bereavement and funerals for a deceased person (SNAICC, n.d.). The project resumed through ongoing communication and support from both Ntaria School and the wider community. The resulting analysis in May 2018 additionally required an extended engagement period, resulting in a collaborative process of making sense of what we had learned together.
11 Figure 1.7: Thesis timeline
12 1.7 Originality, significance, and impact
Originality
The introduction of digital drawing within an Aboriginal community school remains a largely unexplored area of research and thus provides a rich ground for exploration. Introducing young adults in Ntaria to working in a digital context requires understanding the perceptions and value of digital drawing and communication design education in an Aboriginal community. This understanding is currently lacking.
Current concepts and applications of communication design are largely based on Eurocentric understandings. An analysis of literature in Chapter 2 shows there are fundamental differences in the form, process, and articulation of design from Indigenous and non-Indigenous worldviews. Insufficient attention has been given to design approaches outside of Eurocentric frameworks. My thesis addresses this general gap within a specific Australian context, focusing on the lack of Aboriginal voices in communication design.
These voices are also largely silent within communication design education. My study explores Western Arrarnta perceptions of digital drawing, through the development and delivery of design workshops with the young adult participants from Ntaria School. The students had little, if any, exposure to communication design within their education prior to this research project. By giving space and exploring the ways young adults from Ntaria can create and renegotiate interactions with digital drawing, an exploration of how different knowledge traditions engage with communication design education emerged. Current understandings of teaching and learning design are largely entrenched within a Eurocentric learning framework of what constitutes communication design practice. There exists little research on the incorporation of local, cultural, or spiritual approaches to communication design learning, particularly within Aboriginal contexts.
While the use of watercolours and acrylic painting within Aboriginal communities has been covered in the Australian literature (see for example Bardon & Bardon, 2006; Edmond, 2014; Hardy, Megaw & Megaw, 1992; Wroth, 2014), there is little discussion on the implementation of digital drawing tools. The introduction of digital drawing within the Ntaria context presents more complex layers of cultural and social understandings.
13 While the development of Aboriginal art centres, and their ability to reaffirm cultural knowledge, has been documented and analysed within relatively current Australian literature (Woodhead & Acker, 2014), there is little information available on the value and meaning of digital drawing for Aboriginal youth. My thesis evidences the role digital drawing and communication design education can play within Aboriginal communities and further, what the value of this introduction could be in relation to social, cultural, and economic development in Ntaria.
Significance
The Australian communication design industry has to date had a limited understanding and involvement of Aboriginal designers, perceptions, values, knowledges, and processes. Communication design history, practice, and education have been lacking Aboriginal narratives, examples, and influences. As Indigenous artist Vernon Kee (Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu
Yimithirr) explains, ‘most Australians and most folk in graphic design have little or no understanding of the issues involved in working with Aboriginal people, design and artwork’ (2013). A study looking at practices of digital drawing and perceptions of communication design education through the lens of young adults from Ntaria offers new perspectives to current understandings. The significance of this thesis lies within three core areas:
- reframing communication design in relation to Western Arrarnta perspectives;
- approaching communication design education as a collaborative learning journey; and
- assessing the value of digital drawing within an Aboriginal school.
These three areas are described in more detail below.
Firstly, Ntaria perspectives reframe the act of design in relation to Western Arrarnta ways of being, knowing, and doing. This challenges Eurocentric understandings of communication design principles, processes, and outcomes. Engaging with digital drawing practices in Ntaria, and the forms and knowledge that emerge through a Ntaria design process, contributes to communication design research, practice, and education by providing a specific cultural perspective. By adding previously unheard voices to design research, Ntaria perspectives and approaches can evolve and expand current understandings of communication design process, practice, and meaning.
14 A second significant factor in my research is to develop an understanding of approaches to communication design education with Aboriginal students. It will be evidenced in this thesis that the outcomes of this research are well-placed to evolve current educational approaches to the teaching and learning of digital drawing. This research investigates alternative ways to develop school-based design workshops, and ways to engage in learning together. The data and analysis generated from the delivery of the design workshops in Ntaria School will add to the established body of literature in Australia around approaches to the teaching and learning of communication design.
Thirdly, the significance of this research rests on providing evidence of the role digital drawing can play in stimulating the cultural and economic development of Indigenous young adults. This thesis contributes to new knowledge around the value of digital drawing and communication design education in an Aboriginal community. The findings of this thesis show the value of digital drawing, explored from the students’ perspectives.
Impact
This research contributes to new perspectives of communication design principles and processes, educational approaches, and their value within an Aboriginal community. Here, I hope to join other contemporary Australian researchers who are similarly challenging existing understandings and research conventions through their focus on the relationship between Indigenous knowledges and communication design (Edwards-Vandenhoek, 2018; Kennedy, 2015). This research, by specifically focusing on design in Ntaria, adds a local perspective to the growing research on Aboriginal approaches to communication design and education.
Exploring the teaching and learning of design through the perceptions and imaginings of young adults from Ntaria could lead to different kinds of design education, and the development and implementation of more diverse approaches and programs within high schools in Aboriginal communities. By challenging Eurocentric modes of learning and doing through the centralisation of Western Arrarnta design knowledge, perspectives and voices; design in Ntaria has the potential to bring about the possibility of localised design education.
The impact for the Ntaria students involved in this project lies in the ability of a digital drawing tool to enable young people to express their identities in contemporary ways, giving a historically marginalised and silenced group a voice and sense of agency. Learning to draw in a digital way can both stimulate and expand the scope of Indigenous visual expression. The nature of digital drawing
15 tools allows students to leverage their basic knowledge and apply it to a range of fields and outcomes.
The introduction of visual tools in Ntaria indicates that there are opportunities for exploring the longer-term potential of design outcomes and knowledge. Previously introduced visual tools have enabled cultural wellbeing, creative enterprises, and sustainable economies in Aboriginal communities within the Central Desert (Anderson, 2009). The continuing aspiration of this research is to renegotiate traditional understandings of communication design and highlight the value of locally informed communication design education in Australia.
1.8 Ntaria life-worlds
My research was conducted on Western Arrarnta country. The relationship between Country, people and culture is inextricably linked and therefore Ntaria provided more than merely context. It provided the grounding, approach, substance, and heart of this research. Contemporary life in Ntaria is described through the present and future circumstances of Aboriginal youth, and the Western Arrarnta people, language, and Country. This section details how Ntaria life-worlds have underpinned the study. It provides context for understanding the introduction of digital drawing in Ntaria and how an approach to communication design education, based on the realities of community life, began to develop.
1.8.1 Aboriginal youth
As the focus of the research is the Ntaria young adults, it is important to explain the present realities of living within an Aboriginal community. As little information is available specifically from Ntaria, studies from surrounding areas in the Central Desert have been used to suggest commonalities for young people living in often isolated communities.
Aboriginal ceremonial activities, rights of passages, the authority of senior men, and traditional ‘Law’ have transformed across the Central Desert, when people were forced to adapt to European social and institutional practices. Colonial paradigms of school, training, and work subsequently minimised, or eradicated, many Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing. As a result, traditional boundaries of obligations, expectations, and responsibilities have also drastically changed. The introduction of the cash economy, alcohol, and unemployment benefits further altered
16 many everyday practices in Aboriginal communities. The history of dispossession and colonisation continues to impact Aboriginal communities across generations.
Eurocentric approaches to education have forced many practices to change. In particular, educational institutions put pressure on the identity formation processes of Indigenous youth. Promoting mixed gender, age-graded classes (rather than multi-generational groupings) have impacted traditional marriage patterns and traditional ‘Law’, especially around male rites of passage (Austin-Broos, 2001). Still today, in Ntaria, ceremonial transition, or rites of passage are performed to mark the transformation from childhood to manhood.
Australian researchers have explored the negative consequences of rapid social change, particularly for Indigenous males (Beresford & Omaji, 1996; Brady, 1992; Robinson, 1997). The common Western pathway of education leading to employment does not offer a substitute trajectory that makes sense within Central Australia. As a consequence, young men in particular are struggling with identity. Teenage boys tend to drop out of school after passing through initiation ceremonies around the age of 14 or 15. They show a greater tendency to spiral into substance abuse, anti-social behaviour, and even incarceration. Although young women can maintain structured cultural patterns of development associated with childbirth and motherhood, poor school attendance, low retention rates and uneven levels of English literacy and numeracy are present across both genders (Kral, 2011).
These social changes have resulted in young people asserting their autonomy and choosing how they spend their time, more than ever before. Kral explains:
This is leading to a propensity to walk away from school, training or employment when it has no meaning for them (unlike in the traditional past when bypassing learning through the Law had severe consequences) … With everyday life increasingly self-regulated, youth have larger amounts of discretionary leisure-time than ever before, and this can lead to boredom and antisocial behaviour. (Kral, 2011, p. 4)
It is not surprising that research continuously shows Aboriginal youth struggle to find their place both within their own communities and wider Australian society. Young Aboriginal people increasingly experience difficulties and as rising statistics show, this tension and conflict manifests in rising teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and high levels of risky behaviours and violence (Eickelkamp, 2011). However, a growing number of researchers point to meaningful employment as
17 key to improving young people’s lives in their home communities (Brooks, 2011; Tonkinson, 2011). Tonkinson, for example, points to their capacity to endure hardship, to innovate and be resilient, that will ultimately enable young indigenous people ‘to forge new and rewarding paths to fulfilment in the greatly changed world they inhabit’ (2011, p. 234).
Approaches to Aboriginal education and embedding meaning through local, cultural based learning and employment outcomes are discussed in more detail in the following chapters. Yet outside the school context, current Aboriginal youth are growing up where the generational divide is much more prominent. There is ever increasing exposure to Western culture, made possible by increasing access to technology and young Indigenous people are keen consumers of global youth culture.
Western Desert youth now ‘perform’ differently, adapting to contemporary realities (Kral, 2011). Their modes and performances may differ, especially across new technological platforms; but the potential of Indigenous youth should not be overshadowed by overwhelming adverse impacts of historical events on community structure and traditional practices. There is growing literature supporting that Indigenous children are not just at the receiving end of culture and traditions, or being moulded by their environments (LeVine & New, 2008). As Eickelkamp explains, ‘children are active learners; they make and remake culture and history – as innovators and keepers of language, certain modes of knowing and bodies of knowledge, artistic practice, moral codes, patterns of behaviour and social norms’ (2011, pp. 2-3). This agency of the young cannot be underestimated within this context, and its emphasis on the present and future.
Yet focusing on a disadvantage narrative only acts to reinforce these negative perceptions. Current research has tended to overlook the abilities of young people within new forms of cultural practice and participation. It reveals a gap in understanding the capacity and inherent capabilities of Indigenous youth in isolated contexts. Too often, research has focused on the barriers Indigenous people face in mainstream society. This project seeks to reposition the focus on marginalisation and difficulties and instead look towards understanding opportunities, in this instance, through the introduction of digital drawing.
18 1.8.2 Western Arrarnta people, language, and Country
The township of Hermannsburg—known locally as Ntaria—is home to approximately 700 people, and the hub of around 40 regional outstations or ‘homelands’. Ntaria is a 130km drive west from Alice Springs along Larapinta Drive. It is located within the traditional lands of the Western Arrarnta people. The colours of the West MacDonnell Ranges saturate the landscape. The ridges are met by flat grasslands, interrupted by dry creek beds which flow into the Finke River. In rainy season, Alice Springs, usually an hour long trip, becomes inaccessible due to rising flood waters across the road.
The township has a rich and complex creative history. Perhaps most notably for the watercolour landscapes captured by Albert Namatjira, of ghost gums against a backdrop of desert ranges (see Figure 1.8).
Figure 1.8: Mt Hermannsburg painted by Albert Namatjira, circa 1950. A watercolour landscape of mountains surrounding the Ntaria community (ABC, 2017)
Western Arrarnta people are an Aboriginal tribe of Central Australia, with their tribal lands in the Western MacDonnell Ranges. Religious beliefs and ceremonies are still very much at the forefront of everyday existence, with the Dreaming still anchoring social relationships that remain integral in
19 many social domains, such as Law, education and employment. The practice of ceremonies and initiation rites attests to the ongoing strength of Western Arrarnta culture. These acts are an important symbol of cultural identity, despite the post-colonial perceived status of the Arrarnta as a ‘dispossessed indigenous minority people’ (Rigsby, 1987, p. 360).
Although English language is spoken among young people in Ntaria, the main language spoken is Western Arrarnta. Western Arrarnta is a dialect belonging to the Arandic group of languages, which is still spoken over a wide region in Central Australia. The community today, although essentially bilingual in Arrarnta with English as a second language (ESL), could not be described as bilingual. The majority of adult Arrarnta speakers do not read or write and the opportunity to engage with written Arrarnta is limited (Austin-Broos, 2009). Students’ learn ESL as part of the school curriculum at Ntaria School. While young people can often speak two or more Indigenous languages, this oral aptitude does not translate to an ability to write and thus read language.
Life in Ntaria is complex—always responsive to the intimate and intricate rhythms of Western Arrarnta ritual and social life. It is embedded in Country and relatedness, from ritual duties and responsibilities, to watching footy and travelling to sports weekends, seemingly constant funerals and sorry business, and ongoing tensions between kin groups. It is ‘mediated extensively by issues of locality and kin relatedness including their attendant ritual expressions’ (Myers, 1986, pp. 103-26).
1.9 Thesis structure
The structure of this thesis is as follows:
Chapter 1 focuses the research on the young adults from Ntaria, and their perceptions of digital drawing and communication design education. The research question, aims and scope are described, presenting how the research is significant and original.
Chapter 2 reviews the literature. The review focuses on three topics. Firstly, the research is positioned within current understandings of Indigenous and Eurocentric perspectives of design. Secondly, frameworks for communications design and Indigenous approaches to education in Australia are reviewed and their suitability for introducing digital drawing in Ntaria discussed. Thirdly, the research is located within the context of the value of introducing digital tools for Aboriginal youth. The analysis of the literature then informs key implications for the research approach to the study.
20 In Chapter 3, the focus is on theoretical and methodological questions. This chapter outlines the research approach and ethical considerations for conducting research within a Indigenous community. This positioning is then integrated into an approach for introducing Ntaria students to digital drawing and concludes with a collaborative approach to data analysis.
Chapter 4 contains the Ntaria drawings, exploring outcomes of the design workshops and presents our collective analysis. The Ntaria design principles are discussed, as well as the students’ perceptions of design process and meaning.
Chapter 5 focuses on the students’ experiences of the design workshops to introduce them to digital drawing—containing the analysis of the learning experience of the students. A dialogic and questioning approach to learning communication design together is presented, based on our collective experiences from the research.
Chapter 6 focuses on the value of digital drawing and design education for the Ntaria students. It presents analysis of the capabilities of the students as they pertain to design and provides data on the role, value, and importance of the design program for the young adults from Ntaria.
Chapter 7 reports and reflects on new knowledge and insights generated by this research. This chapter provides an answer to the research question, and addresses the claims for new knowledge made by this research. Finally, the discussion also looks to the potential longer term impacts and implications of this study.
Interludes are included between chapters which document my lived-experiences and the transformative nature of living and working in Ntaria. As an ‘insider’ to the research and the academy, and an ‘outsider’ to the community, the narratives of the interludes occupy the space between these multiple worlds and perspectives. Here I draw upon concepts of emic (insiderness) and etic (outsiderness) to negotiate my position in the life and development of the research and my relation to the young adults from Ntaria (Beals et al., 2019; Taylor, 2011).
21 Interlude: Desert Olympics
Figure 1.9: ‘No school today. We’re watching footy.’ The Ntaria football oval during Sports Weekend, where Aboriginal communities across the Central Desert region gather together for a weekend of sports tournaments and related celebrations, Ntaria, April 2017
I remember my initial excitement on arrival in Ntaria, feeling ready to go with my lesson plans, worksheets, and presentation slides. My first day was symbolic of what was to come. ‘I don’t think we’ll have many kids today…’ I was informed by one of the teachers, while walking through the Ntaria school gates, ‘…the weekend sports carnival has run over an extra day.’ She wasn’t wrong. Not a single student turned up to school. I had arrived in the middle of one of the biggest events of the year. Known locally as the ‘Desert Olympics’ where Aboriginal community sports teams, supporters, and families journey hundreds of kilometres from across Central Australia to compete against each other in Aussie rules, basketball, and softball. Each community hosts one weekend across the season, and it was Ntaria’s turn.
Walking across to the dusty red footy oval to watch the Western Arrarnta Bulldogs play in their AFL final represented the beginning of my letting go; letting go of my preconceived ideas about what this project was going to be, how things worked, and my role in it. The final footy game for the weekend tournament had no actual start time. The teams assembled and play started when everyone was
22 good and ready. The red dust flew, and the Yuendumu Magpies took out the win. Celebrations went on long into the night, with the tinny sounds of the old speaker system reverberating through the community.
My introduction to Ntaria everyday life became somewhat symbolic of the research process that unfolded over the next three years. It was not going to be a smooth, straightforward affair. Things didn’t happen when planned. Often they wouldn’t happen at all. I quickly learnt I had no control. The fact I could not anticipate what would happen on any given day, or any given hour, meant the project became responsive to community life. This new-found responsiveness became central to my methodology, and one of shared understandings as part of my emergent journey of learning and discovery.
Physically being in Ntaria, everything became personal. You had to become known and become relatable before anything would ‘really’ happen. I learnt that ‘being there’ in the everyday would be imperative. It required a shift from thinking I was in Ntaria to conduct a research project, to positioning myself as being present and useful as a person within the community. It was about spending time to come to understand this research as an evolving process, and one that happened in many unforeseen and ordinary ways.
Throughout my time in Ntaria, core principles of care, trust, and building relationships became central to the project and helped shape a shared space for learning and understanding. Being there, being useful, being helpful, and showing care was paramount. This time spent in community also challenged me to ask new questions, as my understandings of the students’ life-worlds began to deepen. The research, its question, aims, and approach, have subsequently evolved through the experience of being there. The data collection methods developed to suit language and learning realities, and the pace of the planned design workshops slowed to accommodate the reality and priorities of community life (such as the Desert Olympics) and the students’ personal experiences.
My own understandings of what design is—why it is practised and how it is taught—have also been reconceptualised through this journey. I quickly learnt I had to acknowledge and re-evaluate my own perceptions, shaped from my own communication design practice and education, before I could begin to comprehend design from vastly different cultural perspectives and lived experiences.
23 Chapter 2: The Research Landscape 2.1 Scope
This chapter focuses on identifying, reviewing, and evaluating literature, knowledges, and commentary that pertains to the core themes of this research—Indigenous perspectives of design, approaches to communication design education, and understanding the value of digital drawing in Ntaria. Firstly, design knowledges are discussed. Secondly, literature that informs the approach to teaching and learning digital drawing in Ntaria is then reviewed. Thirdly, literature related to the value of design for Aboriginal youth more broadly is explored. The chapter concludes with a summary and implications of the literature for this research. The purpose of this review is to contextualise knowledges of design, design education, and the value of design by examining academic literature which inform the methodological, educational, and evaluative approaches enacted here. The review takes into consideration national and international perspectives of design knowledges and design education approaches, comparing them to the specificity of a Western Arrarnta context.
From the outset it became clear that academic literature about communication design would be non- existent in the context of Ntaria. However, there are a number of publications relevant to this study, which are reviewed here alongside non-academic works such as discourse and media from professional practice, exhibitions, case studies, pedagogical models, and government educational reports.
2.2 Knowledges of design
This section is concerned with different knowledges, epistemologies, and perceptions of design from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives to understand how Ntaria young adults might perceive and understand design from a Western Arrarnta perspective. It relates to the first aim of the thesis— to explore how the introduction of digital drawing can reveal Western Arrarnta imaginings of communication design in relation to design principles, process, and meanings. The literature pertaining to Indigenous design perspectives is initially presented before reviewing and comparing Eurocentric literature. The saturation of Eurocentric perspectives within design literature is
24 acknowledged, before evaluating the relevance of this literature to the Ntaria context. I then move deeper into the literature pertaining to knowledges of communication design—the focus of this thesis. The literature is reviewed in relation to cultural knowledges of communication design, exploring whether current understandings allow for cultural and spiritual components of Aboriginal expression and knowledge.
2.2.1 Indigenous design perspectives
This section seeks to provide a foundation for understanding Western Arrarnta perceptions of communication design. The relationship between Indigenous knowledges and design requires an engagement with different cultural understandings, definitions, and approaches. While the dynamics of Indigenous cultures differ across Australia, similar experiences and approaches to the relation of Indigenous knowledges and design are expressed by Indigenous designers in Australia (see for example Greenaway, 2018; Kombumerri, 2010; Page, 2012; Sheehan, 2011). Shared understandings position design as a process of discovery, embedded in relational and spiritual understanding, while the purpose of designing is based on culture and connection (Kombumerri, 2010; Page, 2012; Sheehan, 2011). These definitions are important in understanding how the Ntaria young adults may imagine design within a specific Western Arrarnta context, and how local cultural understandings may be similar, or reveal unique differences.
Specific cultural perspectives from the Australian literature are reviewed here, as crucially, and fundamentally, Indigenous knowledges are localised. As education researcher Michael Christie (2006) demonstrates:
Like all knowledge, Aboriginal knowledge everywhere is fundamentally local. Aboriginal knowledge traditions differ from place to place. They derive from and enable culturally-specific and context- specific practices. They come from place and relate people to place in their everyday lives. Aboriginal Australian knowledge is possibly different from many other indigenous knowledge systems around the world, because language, land, and identity are interdependent in a unique way in the Aboriginal Australian world and in a distinctive way in each context. (Christie, 2006, p. 79)
Aboriginal academic Norm Sheehan (Wiradjuri) details how Indigenous knowledges are layered in understanding, with divergent streams of knowledge related to natural systems (2011). He proposes
25 ‘Respectful Design’ as an Indigenous knowledge based, aspirational representation of design (Sheehan, 2011). Sheehan argues Indigenous designs are produced within community, emerge from the broader environment and embedded in voices from the land, the spirit and the people. The deeply spiritual purpose of design for Indigenous peoples is not currently acknowledged within Eurocentric paradigms of design practice or design research. As Sheehan argues:
In this view, design is not just a process that produces new objects, changed situations, or enabled futures; it is the connective process that constitutes externalized cognition. The opportunity that production-oriented cultures miss is the one for informative engagement within natural systems relations, through the shared consciousness provided by visual philosophy. (Sheehan, 2011, p. 71)
For Sheehan, the meaning of design is a process of experiential, relational, and reflexive discovery, grounded in respect for the natural environment—rather than creation. It is ‘not based on what design is, what design does but an aspiration for deeper awareness where discoveries can contribute positively to the well-being of the whole’ (2011, p. 70). From Sheehan’s perspective, the aim of design for Indigenous people is not based on ‘creation’, but on ‘discovery’ and therefore requires a different kind of knowledge, understanding, and process.
Indigenous designers discuss the process of design as fluid and continually evolving. Aboriginal designer, interior architect, and filmmaker Alison Page (Walbanga–Wadi Wadi) (2012) explains how
Aboriginal design embraces a ‘living’ definition of culture which is continually evolving and combines traditional and modern definitions of identity. Furthermore, design from an Aboriginal perspective acknowledges that traditional representations and contemporary expressions are intertwined (Page, 2012).
The process of design from Indigenous perspectives similarly emphasises a holistic relatedness and connectivity: ‘the narrative of Indigenous design is replete with references to spiritual and cultural forces that are more profound that any individual’s intervention’ (Jojola, 2014, para. 5). It is more about how design can become a part of, or fit within, cultural and spiritual processes through an active ‘recreation’ of knowledge and story. The designer can therefore act as a facilitator of story, through a sharing of knowledge. The design process, or telling and sharing, in turn generates knowledge through a ‘remaking of place’.
Concepts of design as ‘remaking’ and ‘recreation’ of knowledge are also consistent among
Indigenous perspectives. For Dillon Kombumerri (Yugembir) (2010), an Aboriginal architect, design
26 as a ‘remarking of place’ exceeds aesthetic understandings of design, and are instead, grounded within country and community (2010). He proposes that a more culturally and environmentally sustainable approach to design is required and that representing ‘place by connecting it with culture and sustainability is a preferred path than trying to create an aestheticised or monumentalised form of Aboriginal architecture’ (Kombumerri, 2010, p.18). As cultural representation is a multidisciplinary design issue, Kombumerri’s comments are also relevant for broader discussions of design.
Indigenous perspectives are also developing outside the academic literature. The 2018 Blak Design Matters exhibition presented a national survey of contemporary Indigenous design curated by
Aboriginal architect Jefa Greenaway (Wailwan and Kamilaroi) (Greenaway, 2018). The exhibition ranged from fashion, interiors, and product design to landscape, architecture, and town planning. With a focus on the rise of urban Indigenous design professionals, the exhibition made Indigenous design visible in Australia’s contemporary design landscape—positioning this research within a contemporary context. The exhibition also speaks to the currency of this study in relation to the growing movement of Indigenous-led practices in design disciplines. It suggests there could be a space for the promotion of Aboriginal community-based youth voices alongside those existing within professional practice in urban areas.
The development of the Indigenous Design Charter, to facilitate accurate representation of Indigenous cultures in design also provides context to this research as it seeks to change understandings within professional practice (AIDC:CD, 2018). Meghan Kelly and Russell Kennedy developed the charter, which includes 10 points for non-Indigenous designers to adhere to when working on projects involving the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture (2016). While there is growing momentum, Indigenous design knowledges largely focus on professional practice within urban spaces, which in turn reveals a disconnect with educational spaces, fostering the development of Indigenous design within Aboriginal community contexts. My research is focused on developing Indigenous voices in communication design, beginning with high school education in desert contexts.
From this review, a preliminary working understanding of design from an Aboriginal perspective can be appreciated as a process of respectful, reflective, relational discovery—a recreation of story and knowledge. It is important to acknowledge that deeper understandings about specific characteristics of Aboriginal design are still required, as Indigenous design perspectives can only be understood by linking highly localised understandings and processes. While Indigenous perspectives are emerging
27 within design discourse, a lack of specific, local interpretations and imaginings remains. While contemporary exhibitions and protocols point to developments in urban professional practice, they reveal a lack of desert youth voices and Indigenous design outcomes from within educational spaces. Yet these voices have laid the groundwork to address one of the aims of the thesis—what an imagining of communication design may be from the Ntaria young adults. These Indigenous design perspectives work to inform the research approach, what kinds of data were necessary to examine design from a Western Arrarnta perspective, and what processes could enable these perspectives to be revealed. Although the current literature is thin on the ground, Indigenous design perspectives highlight fundamental differences to Eurocentric understandings.
2.2.2 Eurocentric design perspectives
Literature pertaining to Eurocentric perspectives of design is reviewed in relation to providing a foundation for exploring Western Arrarnta perspectives, while also highlighting their differences. It looks at the dominant literature within the design discipline to explore any relevant ‘cultural’ approaches for understanding Ntaria imaginings of design. The literature is reviewed in an attempt to situate Ntaria perspectives of digital drawing within current discourses of design research, and then looks specifically to the communication design field. It examines if there can exist a space for the incorporation of distinct cultural voices within communication design research, and how this might be carved out, embedded, and celebrated within discussions of the discipline. It also questions what cultural imaginings might add to current perspectives, approaches, and limitations of design research.
From a Eurocentric standpoint, much has been written about design as a production oriented, problem solving activity, focused on its ability to transform an existing situation to a preferred one (Cross, 1993; Erlhoff & Marshall, 2008; Lawson, 2004; Rittel & Webber, 1969; Simon, 1996). Discussion of design as research usually implies an action of intentional intelligence in order to create and invent useful objects (Buchanan & Margolin, 1995; Cross, 2007; Ebenreuter, 2007; Erlhoff & Marshall, 2008; Wahl & Baxter, 2008). However, design is not all about creating products and artefacts. It can be argued design knowledge is much more holistic, incorporating not just the outcome, but also the designer, and the process follows. Yet Eurocentric design scholars rarely acknowledge diverse cultural understandings of design, while Indigenous perspectives are not mentioned within any of the publications within the founding literature on design research.
28 Tone Bratteteig (2010) proposes an alternative to the object/outcome narrative, and while not based within Indigenous principles, begins to depart from previous understandings focused on artefacts and the intelligence of individual designers. She explains ‘design is about imagining future possibilities and making things that enable us to live some of these possibilities’ (2010, p. 147). These imaginings thus drive the process, and in doing so, through making and designing, with materials and tools, give the idea a form (Bratteteig et al., 2010). Therefore, design can be understood by the use of tools and turning imaginings (or ideas) into forms. Here, design can be more broadly defined in terms of imagining outcomes suitable within specific social and cultural contexts. And while not directly engaging in any distinct cultural perspectives, Bratteteig’s understanding moves beyond general Eurocentric narratives, and allows space for distinct and unique design practices. Yet allowing ‘space’ within dominant narratives still situates Indigenous principles within Eurocentric frameworks and terminologies. While Eurocentric literature provides little guidance for imagining Western Arrarnta design, it does act as a foundation to situate Ntaria perspectives within the design discipline, as their imaginings are turned into forms within a cultural context. Yet this foundation can rightfully, and perhaps necessarily be challenged by Indigenous design notions and include more unique local cultural perspectives.
Turning to concepts of design practice or process, investigations of ‘what designers do’ have had a long history in design research. In his review of design research over the last 40 years, Nigan Bayazit details the relationship between practice and research in design, highlighting the importance of process knowledge for both practitioners and researchers (Bayazit, 2004). Practice-based knowledge is usually associated with skill and craftsmanship in the use of materials but can be applied to the use of design tools and visual principles (Niedderer, 2009, p. 4). Discussing tacit knowledge in design research, Daniela Petrelli (2015) concludes that to capture tacit knowledge and demonstrate research, the process needs to be described across different stages of the design process and the reflections of designers as interpreters of their own work documented. She proposes that these details are needed to express the tacit knowledge embedded within design practice (Petrelli, 2015). The process is key, if the knowledge produced has to be recognised as research. As Barab and Squire explain:
Design-based research requires more than simply showing a particular design work but demands that the researcher (move beyond a particular design exemplar to) generate evidence-based claims about learning that address contemporary theoretical issues and further the theoretical knowledge of the field. (Barab & Squire, 2004, pp. 5-6)
29 This is further reinforced by Bratteteig et al. who illustrate that:
There is knowledge that lives in the design process and is embedded in designed artefacts. There is knowledge we generate as researchers-observers, and knowledge that stems from also being engaged in making digital designs—which sometimes involves making them happen as an occasion for studying them. (2010, p. 17)
As Bratteteig et al. argue, design is a contextual and situated activity. It is a ‘a situated doing and undergoing, experiencing and expressing of people as they engage in practical action, often together with others’ (2010, p.38). Despite design knowledge being ‘situated’ within practice, understandings of design process remain firmly entrenched within Eurocentric understandings and professional practice.
While it dominates the literature (as well as professional practice and academia), there are significant limitations to Eurocentric approaches to design practice and their relevance to an Indigenous design context. Barab and Squire express that ‘context matters’ (2004, p. 12) within the design process, but do not extend their argument into any consideration of ‘cultural contexts.’ Bratteteig et al. attempt to re-contextualise the impact of designers ‘historical-cultural roots’ (2010, p. 18) within the design process. Yet their case study of ‘engaging digitally with cultural heritage’ focuses on Norwegian students and remains embedded within dominate Eurocentric discourses of design practice and cultural engagement (2010, p. 34). While Eurocentric perspectives argue for the importance of practice, reflection, and knowledge within design research, these perspectives remain limited to producing literature that largely reproduces narrow assumptions and implications of cultural practices, and diverse knowledges.
2.2.3 Communication design knowledge
As we move deeper into the Eurocentric literature, the focus now shifts to communication design, and current ‘cultural’ approaches and understandings specific to this discipline and the thesis. The literature is reviewed to assess its relevance to understanding diverse cultural design knowledges relating to the aim of the research to examine specific Western Arrarnta perceptions of communication design. Literature pertaining to communication design research is reviewed, before examining the literature about drawing within communication design.
30 Understanding communication design as a ‘visible part of the ongoing living narrative of culture’ (Woodward, 2008), offers an approach for inquiry that places cultural, social, and aesthetic aspects of design at the centre of expressions of communication. Communication design is often positioned as a ‘means’ or ‘form’ of communication (Hollis, 2001; Kalman, 1991). From a cultural perspective Johanna Drucker (1999, p. 42) suggests communication design points to the ‘ideological values and cultural attitudes’ of a society. Yet Drucker only includes discussion of European and American visual culture, ignoring any investigation of values and attitudes outside of these dominant perspectives. Piers Carey’s ‘cultural approach’ to communication design (1992, p. 30) argues that ‘to study communication is to examine the actual social process wherein significant symbolic forms are created, apprehended and used’. Again, Carey’s approach is solely based on colonial cultures from America, Europe and South Africa. ‘Culture’ to Carey is only discussed in relation to Western philosophy and religion. While acknowledging that ‘when looking for scholarship that emphasizes the central role of culture and a ritual view of communication, one must rely heavily on European sources or upon Americans deeply influenced by European scholarship’ (Carey, 1992, p. 6), he does not expand on this argument or attempt to include any alternative perspectives or voices.
Eurocentric assumptions are again perpetuated by Malcolm Barnard (2013). He suggests that ‘[communication] design in fact produces and reproduces society and culture.’ This implies that communication design, society, and culture are mutually conditioning, but the discussion of culture offers again a largely limited perspective (2013, p. 59). Despite Barnard’s discussion of ‘dominant cultural groups’ within communication design, a critical perspective of culture within communication design is only discussed in relation to variations to McDonalds menus in India, Japan, and Singapore and the globalisation of American brands such as Nike, Starbucks, and Coca- Cola (2013, pp. 154-159). Discussions of ‘culture’ (outside Eurocentric culture) within communication design literature remain insufficiently discussed, highlighting a gap in understanding how communication design is understood, perceived, and practised outside Eurocentric cultures. While it is clear that culture is integral to communication design, scholars have consistently failed to include diverse cultural voices and perspectives.
There are, however, some insightful moments within the literature, providing a foundational understanding of the role of culture and identity within communication design and highlighting the ways in which this research can build upon these concepts. Malcolm Barnard (2013) proposes, that as images, symbols, and icons communicate with diverse cultural groups, communication design, understood through the use of symbolic forms, can be positioned as contributing to the formation of
31 social and cultural identities (Barnard, 2013). Of additional significance is the idea that meaning and identity are at the core of visual communication. This is described by Rick Poyner as a personal ‘language’ (1998). Thus, positioning communication design as ‘language’ contributes to the affirmation of a personal and positive cultural identity. Communication design can initially be understood as an act, process, and form to reproduce cultural knowledge, values, and attitudes. Yet it is important to acknowledge cultural perspectives of communication design are limited and fail to account for any perspectives that might exist outside of accepted Eurocentric definitions. For all the discussions of cultural identity in design, the literature remains limited in its inclusion of any diverse cultural voices and any discussion of how these unique perspectives could work to reconsider and expand the scope of the field.
Communication design research
Within communication design research, expanding understandings of process and representation are crucial in the building of knowledge around distinct cultural and social practices. Gwilt and Williams agree, arguing communication design can be located in a contemporary research paradigm, redefining the practice and language of design by challenging assumptions to reconsider and broaden the profession (2011). Contributing knowledge on design process resonates with current academic design discussions towards future practices and discipline expertise. Yet despite purporting their article provides a ‘critical space’ to expand design research, Gwilt and Williams don’t discuss the inclusion of any diverse cultural voices in their ‘future for visual communication design research’ (2011, p. 81). Their lack of engagement with any cultural perspectives, or criticism of current approaches, suggests the future of design will remain uncritically Eurocentric. This could become highly problematic for the future development of an international research field.
As the majority of communication design literature remains Eurocentric, there exists little understanding of diverse cultural communication design practice or the value of distinct Indigenous voices. This is a contradiction within the literature, as creating visual communication is an instrument of identity assertion that can contribute to the (re)construction of identity (Simonard, 2010). As communication design involves the creation of cultural identities, this power and agency, to create representations in order to assert who you are and how you are perceived by others, should not go unrecognised, particularly when utilised by often marginalised and silenced groups. Indigenous groups have historically not had any control over the representation of their cultures within design and wider mainstream media in Australia—often being victim to stereotypical imagery
32 and oversimplified and damaging representations (Kennedy, 2015). UNESCO affirms that ‘in an environment increasingly saturated by visual communication, imagery has the propensity to maintain, confirm and re-create such problematic representations of “others” ad infinitum’ (Rivière, 2009, p. 141). Communication design, which has historically produced stereotyped representations of Aboriginal people, can also act to produce representations that assert the cultural identity of Indigenous groups. Moss argues that Indigenous agency can be enacted ‘with and through forms of representations, including signs, symbols, and artistic styles’ (Moss, 2010, p. 375). These representations can therefore deeply relate to community aspirations and embody how they want to be seen by others and who they want to become—underpinning the aims of this research in communicating diverse cultural voices and communication design knowledge.
In summary, ‘knowledge’ in the communication design literature remains predominantly focused on Eurocentric ‘designerly’ practitioner knowledge (Cross, 2007). The majority of design researchers included within the scope of this review have failed to account for other kinds of perspectives, understandings, and knowledges, particularly of deep cultural, social, relational, and spiritual dimensions. Current understandings of the knowledge inherent in the design process allows a questioning of ‘how’ unique Aboriginal cultures will integrate their inherited spiritual knowledge, visual language, and cultural expressions, within imaginings of design tools, process, and forms. The lack of cultural and spiritual dimensions documented within design process further reinforces the value of engaging and researching diverse imaginings of design, within continually evolving and adapting Indigenous knowledges and cultures.
Drawing in communication design
As this research is concerned with digital drawing as an introduction to communication design, literature is reviewed here relating to the activity of drawing within the discipline. Existing research typically emphasises the importance of analogue drawing, as a form of visual thinking, a sequence of ‘design moves’ (Goldschmidt, 1991, p. 125), ‘having a conversation’ (Lawson, 1994, p.114) or a graphical ‘conversation’ with the materials of design (Schön & Wiggins, 1992, p.154). Within communication design literature, drawing is again focused on ideation and sketching as a means to generate ideas, explore, and communicate design (Schenk, 1989, 1991). Looking digitally, the literature predominantly focuses on showcasing the work and styles of individual designers. However, there exists an opportunity to extend previous understanding, focused specifically on the significant connection between digital drawing and its relationship to communication design.
33 The relationship between drawing and communication design charts a largely parallel course to the modern Eurocentric history of the discipline and developments in technology, moving from an applied art origin to postmodern manifestations and commercial practice (Heller & Chwast, 2008). The drawing journey is generally described as following the industrial evolution from pen to mouse (Hyland & Bell, 2001). The digital revolution of the late 1980s changed the production and style of drawing within communication design. Drawing on the computer’s strength as an image making tool, pixelation (or bitmap digital images) were soon joined by airbrushing techniques and vector graphics. Vectors developed through technical improvements over the years to high resolution renderings, now accepted as industry standard. Digital styles developed that were still in keeping with modernist aesthetics: ‘hard-edged, linear geometric works of art whose formalist approach was in keeping with the Modernist culture from which they sprang’ (Beddard, 2010). Hyland and Bell (2003) note that vector illustration acted as a ‘stylistic movement of minimal slickness and highly polished clean lines’ (p.7). Hyland and Bell (2001) describe vector forms of digital drawing as a ‘technical, almost scientific approach’, that designers could now take advantage of technological control and manipulation (p.8). Steven Heller makes reference to vector drawings as a central component of ‘The New Order’ of contemporary design. He explains: ‘There’s a kind of new order in design, a new precision that is brought about by an increasing number of digital tools’ (2017, para. 9).
Within the scholarly literature there is a lack of substantial discussion on digital drawing, yet digital drawing, specifically vector graphics, form a core component of contemporary communication design. Communication design industry magazines such as International Designers Network (IdN), Juxtapos, Eye Magazine, Creative Review, and Communication Arts regularly feature digital drawing, both historical and contemporary, including discussion of vector graphics—generally focused on detailing the practices of specific designers. This is also evident across industry-focus websites, such as AIGA’s Eye on Design, Creative Boom, and Design Observer which detail the changing platforms, tools, and styles within the discipline and again feature the portfolios of many designers utilising vector graphics within their practice. For example, Creative Boom has over 300 articles featuring vector graphic outcomes. Similarly, the Adobe blog has over 100 articles on vector graphics, describing techniques and detailing uses and features of the tool within its design programs. While it is clear working with vector graphics is an established practice within the communication design industry; there exists a lack of critical review on the relation between drawing with vectors and communication design, and what place digital drawing occupies within the discipline. While vectors
34 have yet to be superseded by any other digital drawing technique, the relation between drawing and designing requires more considered debate.
Drawing in a digital way presents diverse opportunities in creation, adaption, and outcomes. The speed at which an image can be manipulated and altered is the most obvious advantage. As Coyne, Park, and Wiszniewski (2002) and other authors mentioned here explore, new technologies introduce new practices. One has to learn and practise how to use the new tool, while new practices confront current ways of working—inducing them to do things differently (Coyne, Park, & Wiszniewski, 2002). However, as Hyland and Bell (2001) explain, ‘the basic craft skills of the image- maker are still vital’ within communication design (p. 10). Spencer (cited in Hyland & Bell, 2001) furthered that ‘craft is a skill that is required, whereas technology is a tool to be used’ (p. 49). From these discussions, it is clear that the use of digital drawing in communication design highlights how tradition and technology can co-exist. Relevant to the use of digital drawing within this research, digital tools present opportunities in adaption and manipulation, yet the skill, knowledge, identity, and story of the designer remains crucial. While introducing tools within new contexts can produce different ways of working and storytelling, these practices cannot be separated from the cultural legacy of the creator.
2.3 Approaches to communication design education
This section reviews the literature around the teaching and learning of communication design, examining current approaches and their relevance to introducing digital drawing within Ntaria School. It starts with a review of the literature on Indigenous education. This is then compared to the predominantly Eurocentric literature on communication design education. Examples of educational programs that have drawn from and integrated Indigenous approaches to the teaching and learning of design are then discussed. While approaches to communication design within higher education are included to give context, the focus of the review pertains to literature related to secondary school environments within Australia, as is the focus of the research.
2.3.1 Indigenous education
It is important to preface this discussion with the position that Indigenous perspectives have only recently been included and made mandatory within Australia’s high school curriculum (ACARA, 2019). In 2011, Australia’s national curriculum body (ACARA) published The Aboriginal and Torres
35 Strait Islander Curriculum Cross-Curriculum Priorities (ACARA, 2011). Including Indigenous perspectives as a priority area within high school education led to the establishment of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project, which developed the curriculum over many years of national consultation and review, only becoming available in early 2019 (ACARA, 2019). Foundation Chair of Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Professor Marcia Langton
(Yiman and Bidjara) was an instrumental player in this project, explaining its significance:
Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents, grandparents and great grandparents have a burning desire for their young people to learn in school about their cultures and achievements, and feel proud of them. They want Australian children, especially Indigenous children, to know that contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are strong, resilient, rich and diverse. (Langton, 2019, para. 1)
As Langton expresses, Aboriginal students have a distinctive cultural heritage and Aboriginal educators consistently raise concerns around the inadequacy of mainstream schooling approaches and outcomes for their children. Hughes and More (1997) argue a major role for education is the transmission of a society’s culture from one generation to the next, and this is often denied to Aboriginal people.
Aboriginal cultural customs, values and codes of behaviour are an essential part of the lives of Aboriginal people. Yet they are obliged to send their children to mainstream schools where these customs, values and codes are usually ignored. Not only the teaching styles, but the very cultural basis and assumptions of the schooling is often inconsistent with their cultural background. (Hughes & More, 1997, p. 4)
Within the Northern Territory, the Indigenous Education Strategy was developed in 2015, emphasising the maintenance of Indigenous languages and cultures while acknowledging deep cultural associations with the land and water: ‘… all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people will achieve their full learning potential, are empowered to shape their own futures and are supported to embrace their culture and identity as Australia’s First Nation peoples’ (2015, p. 4). Learning experiences of Aboriginal children, as with all students, are crucial to educational and life opportunities. The changing landscape of Indigenous education in Australia is explored below. The positioning of Indigenous knowledges, histories, and cultures within Australian education straddles a complex and changing learning environment and continues to challenge mainstream approaches.
36 Background to Indigenous education
Learning within Indigenous societies is a lifelong process involving knowledge holders and Elders passing on their knowledge in a complex system of skills, customs, rituals, and ceremonies—a process that has sustained communities for thousands of years (Cross-Townsend, 2011; Valadian, 1992). Early education of Aboriginal children is undertaken by family and extended kin groups, often by an informal learning approach. Only later, particularly in the context of initiation or in the learning of religious knowledge and ritual, verbal instruction and learning is given in a more formal and structured way (Jordan & Howard, 1985). In an intensive study in Millingimbi in central Arnhem Land, Stephen Harris (1977) describes Indigenous learning strategies and contrasts them with Eurocentric approaches to education.
Most Yolngu learning is through observation and imitation ... rather than through verbal instruction, oral or written, as is the case in European schools and society. The other most important learning strategy is learning through personal trial and feedback as opposed to verbal instruction accompanied by demonstration.... Most learning is achieved through real-life performance rather than through practice in contrived settings, as is often the case in schools. The focus in Aboriginal learning is on mastering context-specific skills. Mastery of context-specific skills is in contrast to a school education system which seeks to teach abstract content-free principles which can be applied in new, previously inexperienced situations. Finally, Yolngu learners are more person-oriented than information-oriented, and there is no institutionalised officer of 'teacher' in Yolngu society. This means that Aboriginal children and adults will assess, respect or ignore balanda (white) teachers more on the basis of how they relate as persons, than according to how they perform as teachers. (Harris, 1977, p. 523)
Indigenous education is practical, hands on, and focused on relationships. Children are provided with an education grounded in culture that taught practical everyday necessities—survival, the use of land, caring for country, and other cultural lessons deemed necessary by Elders.
Culturally responsive approaches
From the 1980s, the knowledges, perspectives, histories, cultures, and languages of Indigenous peoples began to be acknowledged within education policies and curricula, following a century of denial (Wilks & Wilson, 2016). It was recognised that culturally responsive teaching practices could improve academic outcomes for Indigenous students (Craven, Yeung, & Han, 2014; Wilks & Wilson
37 2016). Teachers were encouraged to be aware of a student’s culture and use their prior cultural knowledge, experiences, and values to make learning more meaningful and relevant (Lewthwaite et al., 2014). These approaches have also been shown to improve other aspects outside academic development, including improved self-concept (Munns, Martin, & Craven, 2006), self-confidence (Rahman, 2010), motivation (Munns, Martin, & Craven, 2006), engagement with schooling (Munns, Martin, & Craven, 2006; Rahman, 2010), and feelings of empowerment (Craven, Yeung, & Han, 2014; Craven et. al., 2005). These improvements suggest the cultural responsiveness of teachers’ results from being aware of, and respecting, students’ unique identity while valuing and nurturing relationships between family and community.
Existing frameworks into culturally responsive approaches to Indigenous education present insights predominately focused on the cultural awareness of teachers. Lewthwaite et al. (2015) suggest that teachers ensure they build positive relationships, adapt their teaching style to accommodate diversity, and bridge cultural barriers in order to ensure improved learning outcomes (Lewthwaite et al., 2015). Thelma Perso also draws attention within her framework to the imperative of teachers adopting learner-centred and strength-based approaches, developing close affective relationships with students, using relevant and interesting content, using extensive scaffolding, situating learning in cultural contexts, teaching to a variety of learning styles, using low risk questioning techniques, and maintaining high expectations of students (Perso, 2012). However, understandings of what is considered to be best practice in culturally responsive teaching are varied. This is due to the fact that Indigenous cultures are diverse, with unique histories, languages, cultural practices, and ways of operating within the classroom.
As becomes clear, an approach to culturally responsive teaching that works with one Aboriginal student may not necessarily work with another. The risk of adopting a single teaching approach across diverse cultural groups can also mean it can be misinterpreted. The complex nature of inadequate methods of assessment and culturally responsive education—for Indigenous and non- Indigenous students—render evidence and evaluation of such programs difficult and inconsistent (Griffiths, 2011). Few studies have evaluated any outcomes of culturally responsive approaches to Indigenous education programs introduced in Australia since the 1970s (Griffiths, 2011, p. 74). While research points to the strengths of culturally responsive approaches, there exists uncertainty as to its empirical outcomes. Understood as an approach to teacher behaviour, rather than a pedagogical framework, educators can work towards and reflect on their own approach. These approaches focus on teachers delivering content in culturally responsive ways. How to integrate Indigenous
38 knowledges and perspectives into the curriculum, and teach within Indigenous pedagogies, remains unclear and requires deeper approaches and emphasis on Indigenous learning processes.
The cultural perspectives of Indigenous students can contribute in a productive way to our understanding of the nature of teaching and learning experiences. Although culturally responsive frameworks are not a robust and evidenced approach to Indigenous ways of learning, they do offer insights into the benefits of cultural awareness, situating learning within specific cultural contexts. Emerging from these approaches were strategies informed by traditional forms of Indigenous education, with educators working to embed such strategies within the classroom as two-ways or both-ways education, drawing from both Indigenous and mainstream Eurocentric schooling models.
Two-way education
While culturally responsive approaches to education were becoming known in the 1980s, some educationalists looked instead to relevant and appropriate models in the form of traditional education practices prior to colonisation (Coombs, Brandl, & Snowdon, 1983; Harris, 1988). These trials resulted in the conception of ‘two-way learning’ (Harris, 1989), a model of teaching and learning that proposes Indigenous people can operate in both domains—Indigenous and non- Indigenous education—particularly better access to non-Indigenous education by incorporating Indigenous learning styles. Harris (1990) defined two-way Aboriginal schooling as:
A strategy … to provide opportunity for the primary Aboriginal identity to stay strong, though changing, and these continue to be the source of inner strength and security necessary for dealing with the Western world.... Aboriginal people today are increasingly interested both in being empowered in terms of the Western world and in retaining or rebuilding Aboriginal identity as a primary identity. (1990, p. 48)
Two-way approaches have gained widespread acceptance among many academics working within Indigenous contexts and they are still practised and discussed within the literature (Andersen, 2012; Christie, 2006; Ober & Bat, 2007; Purdie, Milgate, & Bell, 2011). The approaches have widened to include a ‘both-ways’ concept, with many authors using both to refer to the same meaning (Purdie, Milgate, & Bell, 2011). Within two-way approaches, Harris promotes ‘cultural domain separation’ to allow each domain (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) to grow independently, whereas the both-ways concept focuses on those aspects of each domain which are compatible (1990). The latter concept
39 accepts that it is necessary for some aspects of each domain to grow separately, but argues that in today’s world there also needs to be a growing or coming together of some aspects.
For many Indigenous peoples, two-ways/both-ways pedagogy signals a partnership discourse, a neutral ‘third space’ where the two primary cultures of Australia meet and can learn from each other (Purdie, Milgate, & Bell, 2011). This third space has been described as a ‘zone where land and sea meet’ or where Indigenous and non-Indigenous approaches can meet and fuse to ‘create its own either/or/both identity’ (Purdie, Milgate, & Bell, 2011, pp. xx-xxi). Yolgnu school principal,
Yunupingu, implemented both-ways curriculum through the Gänma philosophy of two knowledges flowing into a lagoon, the saltwater and freshwater meeting and mixing, bringing new ideas (Burarrwanga et al., 2013). Through these flowing and fluid metaphors, it is clear how two-way/both- ways learning approaches enable Indigenous people control of curriculum to support their epistemologies (Ober & Bat, 2007). As a result of this fluid and dynamic space, it is however difficult to negotiate, has many variations, and subsequently received criticism.
Critique around two-way/both-way approaches depicts both-ways as binary, oversimplified, promoting difference, while ‘othering’ Indigenous cultures and peoples (Ober & Bat, 2007, p. 72). These approaches assert that teachers must examine their own cultural baggage, but the literature does not explain how teachers might go about this, how a culturally responsive approach might be embedded in the curriculum, and how to teach using Indigenous perspectives. While these approaches highlight why cultural approaches are important, there is a lack of information, no concrete suggestions, or practical applications around utilising Indigenous approaches to teaching and learning.
From an Indigenous perspective, these approaches also contain gaps, namely the lack of narrative voice of Indigenous people and the strong connection between land and pedagogy (Yunkaporta,
2009). Aboriginal educator and academic Tyson Yunkaporta (Apalech) argues these stories and perspectives—from real-life community learning activities—are the spaces where Aboriginal pedagogy might be drawn (2009).
The 8-ways framework
Various propositions and approaches to Aboriginal pedagogy in the literature can be recognised within the 8-ways Aboriginal Pedagogy Framework (8-ways), developed by Tyson Yunkaporta to
40 assist teachers in coming to Aboriginal knowledge, and actively using and applying this framework in the classroom (Yunkaporta, 2009). This approach to Aboriginal pedagogy highlights the significant value of adopting Indigenous pedagogies in all areas of teaching, not just the cultural awareness of teachers themselves, or modelling Indigenous approaches against non-Indigenous domains. Identifying a lack of research and structured pedagogical advice for teachers to apply ‘Indigenous higher order thinking within structures and pedagogies’, Yunkaporta created the ‘8-ways framework of Aboriginal pedagogies’ (2009, p. 63).
The framework embeds Indigenous pedagogies into teaching and curriculum. The focus is on ‘learning through culture, not just about culture’, where Aboriginal perspectives are located in Aboriginal processes, not in Aboriginal content (Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011, p. 206). Through a ‘relationally relevant pedagogy’, the teacher connects Indigenous methodological, epistemological processes with relational processes and values through moving from ‘law to relations to knowledge to practice’ (Department of Education and Communities, 2012, pp. 62-63). The framework comprises eight interconnected pedagogies that see teaching and learning as fundamentally holistic, non- linear, visual, kinaesthetic, social and contextualised.
The eight interconnected pedagogies of the 8-ways framework are illustrated below:
Figure 2.1: 8-ways Aboriginal Pedagogy Framework (Yunkaporta, 2009)
41 The images in the framework were modelled on a kinship system to show they are not steps to follow, but dynamic and interactive processes. The 8-ways framework lies in the application of Indigenous processes, specifically the application of Indigenous pedagogies. It seeks common ground between Indigenous and non-Indigenous systems, particularly knowledge around ways of learning.
The orientation of the 8-ways framework is non-linear, allowing students to return to knowledge for deeper understanding and introspection. As Battiste (2002) highlights, Eurocentric pedagogy ‘ignores knowledge that comes from introspection, reflection [..] and other types of self–directed learning’ (p. 16). Yunkaporta’s framework is also based on contextualised learning, allowing students to see how education is relevant to and meaningful in their own lives (Craven, 1999). The 8-ways framework offers an approach for more inclusive teaching that draws on Aboriginal pedagogy and practice, offering a grounding for communication design education.
Researchers within Australia have implemented 8-ways within a variety of learning contexts. Charles Darwin University in partnership with Aboriginal communities, for example, apply 8-ways within their ‘Growing Our Own’ Indigenous teacher education initiative (Maher, 2010). The framework is increasingly informing program development and teaching practice in schools across New South Wales in teaching Indigenous and non-Indigenous students through culture (Department of Education and Communities, 2012). While there is no sustained review or critique of the 8-ways framework within the literature, researchers have applied the framework to diverse areas, from teaching literacy in primary school (Godinho et al., 2014), music education in NSW high schools (Power & Bradley, 2011), to anatomy and physiology in tertiary education (Bilton, 2018). Despite an in-depth evaluation of 8-ways, these studies all speak to the effectiveness of the framework in increasing engagement in learning, particularly that of Indigenous students.
Integration of 8-ways within communication design education
Drawing on 8-ways within a place-based design practice, Samantha Edwards-Vandenhoek (2018) utilised the framework as the basis for a six-phase design process when working with Gija youth in Western Australia (see Figure 2.2). Her research provides a foundation for approaching and integrating 8-ways within design education, scaffolding learning around how design can embed and position itself in relation to natural, social, and spiritual realms. Edwards-Vandenhoek argues ‘a
42 holistic, situated and relational way of being, knowing and designing, can be supported by locating the Eight Ways at the centre of the iterative learning cycle’ (2018, p. 628).
While a comprehensive evaluation of 8-ways applied to communication design is not provided, Edwards-Vandenhoek speaks to the challenging nature of the framework, particularly from educators working as cultural outsiders, and how its application had to take into account individual aptitudes and students’ self-selection of tasks (2018). The educational approach used within this research is informed by, and builds on the work of Edwards-Vandenhoek, applying communication design education within the specific context of Ntaria—exploring how design educators can engage with Indigenous pedagogies, processes, and perspectives.
Figure 2.2: The Design-Learning Framework of the Marngo program (Edwards-Vandenhoek, 2018)
Putting it into practice
Indigenous perspectives are inclusive and simultaneously connected to curriculum, to country, and to community. This requires teachers to be relational and responsive and to actively seek out Indigenous youth perspectives. Communication design curricula generally revolve around instructing students and evaluating their individual projects, without much awareness or
43 consideration of teacher reflection, or wider community engagement (Canniffe, 2011). The transfer of learning is generally linear—from teacher to student—with a focus on positioning the student as an individual, often isolated from their surrounding community (Canniffe, 2011). Indigenous learning, however, is non-linear, allowing both teacher and student to return to knowledge, allowing for deeper understanding and introspection. Evident within the literature presented, is effective teachers are culturally responsive—developing the full educational potential of each student and the knowledges, skills, values, norms, resources, epistemologies, and histories each represents (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008).
A starting point for actioning Indigenous processes and pedagogies is the awareness and reflection of teachers and educators. For communication design to embrace Indigenous approaches, processes and practices, personal reflection and collaboration with community becomes a vital first step. Evident through the literature, teachers first need to engage in personal reflection, to centre themselves in their own cultural worldviews before coming to Indigenous knowledges with respect, integrity, and productive intent (Yunkaporta, 2009). This core aspect of reflection and relationality can thus be positioned as bringing design educators to Indigenous knowledges by sitting with students and the community, and listening to their stories and perspectives. Instead of design being delivered in a linear transfer, a more inclusive approach is required within this research, to come to design education from a culturally responsive position.
Taking relationality and reflexivity as a starting point, this research uses the 8-ways framework as a foundation for communication design education within Aboriginal communities. Yunkaporta and Kirby note that ‘the mistake … is that Aboriginal perspectives have been confused with Aboriginal themes. A genuine Aboriginal perspective can bring Aboriginal [..] orientations to the study [of] mainstream content, no matter what the theme is’ (2011, p. 204). Therefore, the emphasis of teaching communication design in Ntaria is not to include Indigenous examples within the teaching of digital drawing, but to approach the teaching and learning of design from Indigenous perspectives and processes. Through the 8-ways framework, teachers can engage with Indigenous knowledge protocols and create their own programs.
44 2.3.2 Communication design education: The Australian high school context
This section comprises an overview of the education literature including scholarly texts, national and state-based government educational reports, policies, and their corresponding websites that informs current approaches to communication design education, specifically pertaining to high school education in Australia. The literature is reviewed in relation to what aspects of these approaches might inform the introduction of digital drawing and the corresponding delivery of the design workshops within Ntaria School. However, the majority of literature in the discipline of communication design education focuses on the design and delivery of programs within higher education. Therefore, while the review below draws from a wider remit of design education to provide context, the focus is on literature relating to high school education and specifically, education within schools in the Northern Territory.
Communication design education
Traditionally the majority of communication design courses are conceptually, vocational training programs, often linked to Fine Arts programs (Chmela-Jones, 2017). Generally, basic principles of form, aesthetics, and communication are taught and students are facilitated to create visual communicative outputs with the use of these principles and advanced technologies (Adiloğlu, 2011; Swanston, 1994). Fatos Adiloğlu describes the educational purpose of communication design as developing students’ competencies towards creating an effective visual language and communicating with it (2011). Murdock’s (2011) understanding, supports this purpose, where students should experience and acquire skills to research, think critically, conceptualise, and develop communication skills, focusing on the combination of theory, technology, and practice.
The curriculum of most communication design courses is similar across vocational and higher education. Introductory courses focus on foundation theories and skills, such as drawing, design principles, and colour theory, as well as the use of advanced technologies and digital tools (Wilson as cited in Murdock, 2011, p.19). Students then progress to projects specifically constructed to deal with practical problems, often becoming more self-directed (p.19). Kate Chmela-Jones explains a great portion of time is allocated to ‘a continuous acquiring and refining of basic graphic design competencies’ that assist in the creation of a commercially oriented portfolio at the end of students’ degree programs (2017).
45 Communication design education in Australia
In Australia communication design is taught across secondary and tertiary education in a variety of forms. Within higher education these include specific communication design courses within universities, private higher education institutions, and vocational education and training colleges. Outside of higher education, components of communication design are taught within secondary schools across a number of subject areas within the national curriculum, including Design and Technology, Media Arts, and Digital Technologies.
Within Media Arts ‘students learn to engage with communications technologies and cross-disciplinary art forms to design, produce, distribute and interact with a range of print, audio, screen-based or hybrid artworks’ (Australian Curriculum, Learning in Media Arts, n.d.). Here, the aim of design is focused on creating representations of the world and telling stories through communication technologies. Yet there exists little research into how these aims are evidenced in the classroom, and analysis of student outcomes. Within Design and Technology and Digital Technologies, the focus is on developing knowledge of engineering principles and systems, digital systems, information management, and computational thinking to create digital solutions. The core is the development of computational thinking skills: problem solving strategies, and techniques that assist in the design and use of algorithms and models (Falkner, Vivian, & Falkner, 2014).
Concepts, skills, and processes of communication design, although not explicit within Australia’s national curriculum align more towards the content within Media Arts, positioned as a branch of Arts education (which includes dance, drama, music, media arts, and visual arts). Within Media Arts, curriculum content includes ‘plan and design media artworks’, ‘producing media artworks’, and ‘create media artworks’ but does not explicitly address what constitutes a ‘media artwork’ and there are no direct references to communication design as form or media artwork (ACARA, 2011). Within the examples of classroom resources, ACARA includes a Poster Art teaching activity as well as activities on creating outcomes for use on social media (ACARA, 2011). Again, while there are no direct references to communication design, these activities and outcomes suggest principles and processes of communication design are utilised within these activities and learning areas.
Education in Aboriginal communities
Looking specifically at the Northern Territory, schools draw upon both the national curriculum and the Northern Territory Curriculum Framework. Secondary education at Ntaria School additionally
46 draws on Employment Pathways, a Northern Territory Board of Studies approved framework for secondary education provision for Aboriginal students from Aboriginal communities (Northern Territory Board of Studies, 2018). It includes core domains which cover literacy, numeracy, life skills, wellbeing, employability skills, and vocational learning (Northern Territory Board of Studies, 2018). The review of secondary education undertaken by the Northern Territory Government (Street et al., 2018) provides a detailed analysis of educational options and outcomes for Indigenous students including Employment Pathways. The report identifies occasional Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs as the only post-primary education on offer within Central Desert communities. These programs often take on the core role of provider of secondary education and supply basic education within their core business of mainstream work-oriented training (Street et al., 2018; Young, Guenther, & Boyle, 2007). While the Employment Pathways framework allows learning to be focused on employability skills and employment outcomes that are specific to Aboriginal community contexts and employment options, it also relies on VET providers to deliver content relevant to employment options within community, and develop culturally relevant education and training.
The Growing the Desert review by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) offers a comprehensive analysis of VET participation and educational pathways for Aboriginal people living in Central Australia (Young, Guenther, & Boyle, 2007). The report identifies Indigenous desert people are accessing types of VET courses that have a more personal enrichment focus, and thus able to be adapted to cultural and lifestyle contexts than the more mainstream vocational courses. The report signals that the types of social and economic participation being actively chosen by Indigenous desert people do not necessarily ‘fit’ with the opportunities available through national education offerings (Young, Guenther, & Boyle, 2007). Young, Guenther, and Boyle assert that although localised learning programs are preferred, they are often short-term and their learning and outcomes go largely unreported:
This plethora of learning activity represents the ‘underbelly’ of education efforts across the desert. Its extent is difficult to ascertain; given that it goes largely unreported unless evaluated by individual organisations or government departments. The range of offerings is often ad hoc and usually dependent on one-off funding. The prominence of learning in programs initiated beyond the formal education sectors could be seen as a response to the systemic neglect of education access for Indigenous people residing in communities across the desert. The focus of many of these activities is working with local people around local issues and opportunities. (2007, p. 28)
47 The report asserts that locally-informed programs are fulfilling and enabling community development, although without the legitimacy and financial security of educational provision common within urban Australia. Furthermore, it asserts that importantly, employment pathways programs are grounded in harnessing existing and new skills towards community building and embracing cultural contributions (Young, Guenther, & Boyle, 2007). This is further supported by research by the National Centre for Student Equity which found incorporating Indigenous epistemologies into the curriculum through culturally centred and personally transformative programs built social resilience, improved education outcomes, and increased the longer-term participation rates of young Aboriginal people (Cajete, 1994; Fredericks et al., 2015).
Therefore, in the context of Ntaria School, education within the senior years, although flexible and locally informed, is largely dependent on the accessibility of VET providers, which in turn decides the direction and content of students’ learning. Research from both education bodies and the academic literature shows support for locally-informed, culturally-centred education programs within Aboriginal community contexts. When considering the development of communication design education within the Ntaria context, it raises the question: what might be a locally-informed, culturally-centred approach to communication design education?
Although no specific communication design programs are currently taught within senior years at Ntaria School, students undertake creative programs through Aboriginal-run art centres and learn watercolour painting and pottery, taught by local Western Arrarnta artists. Therefore, teaching methods such as learning English language and numeracy (from non-Indigenous teachers often utilising English as additional language pedagogy) in comparison to learning Western Arrarnta creative practice (often taught by family members in Western Arrarnta language) are considerably different. Introducing digital drawing through communication design education within Ntaria School therefore needs to recognise that Ntaria students continue to learn in and through their own language and culture.
Cultural approaches to communication design education
Engagement with different cultural perspectives of design, particularly Indigenous approaches, differs greatly between education institutions in Australia. Within higher education, Indigenous perspectives within design curriculum are argued by Clarke (2011) as being ‘appendices’, and low participation rates of Indigenous students, including within design courses, have been attributed to
48 studying in primarily Eurocentric learning environments and contexts that ‘reflect very little, if any, Indigenous perspectives’ (Fredericks et al., 2015, p.1). Within a secondary school environment, Australia’s Indigenous history has been, until recently, largely excluded from the national curriculum (Westaway, 2014). Yet there are current efforts by The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) to embed Indigenous perspectives as a cross-curriculum priority area, for Aboriginal students to be ‘able to see themselves, their identities and their cultures reflected in the curriculum of each of the learning areas, can fully participate in the curriculum and can build their self-esteem’ (ACARA, 2011). However, upon examination of the national curriculum, Lowe and Yunkaporta (2013) argue ACARA intentions have not been realised, asserting ‘It would be fair to summarise the current inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content as weak, often tokenistic and overwhelmingly unresponsive to historical and contemporary realities’ (p.12).
Apart from a brief mention within two Australian research studies (Ostwald & Williams, 2008; Zehner et al., 2009), there is little literature that documents the opportunity to adopt or facilitate cultural aspects within design education. Culture is referred to in these studies in relation to studio, collegial or discipline culture, not the inclusion of any diverse cultural perspectives in relation to design education. Yet as definitions of design are shifting to include more cultural perspectives, communication design education must adjust accordingly to contribute to more diverse systems of practice. While an awareness of the social and cultural impact of design holds great relevance for the design profession and should be a part of any future design education programs; currently a widespread academic dialogue of the educational approaches for including Indigenous design as a component of Australian communication design curriculum has not yet taken place. To include Indigenous perspectives in a communication design classroom setting, studio components must work to adopt Indigenous pedagogies, embrace cultural and spiritual meaning, align with local contexts, while privileging equal relationships of trust and participation.
More broadly, social and cultural perspectives on design education are beginning to emerge. From Canada, design anthropologist Dori Tunstall in an interview for AIGA, the professional association for design, argues for design education needs that ‘prepare students to understand the cultural implications of what they’re designing, as well as understand the role they play in the creation of culture by the making of things. That leads to questions of ethics, questions of social justice, questions of accountability, appropriation, indigenization, and decolonization’ (Andersen, 2017). In South Africa, Piers Carey advocates for African design systems to be taught in the classroom, yet he states ‘Such a process can only begin if both the education and experience of the designers engage with these cultures’
49 (2011, p.61). Thus communication design education in South Africa ‘might thus include not simply the visual traditions of the pre-colonial indigenous societies, or the development of “Westernized” graphic design in the country, but also the range of accommodations and adaptations made between the two types of tradition over time’ (Carey, 2011, p.62). While Indigenous perspectives of design education are limited within current research, Teal Triggs adds that emerging research will be critical for the development of new design narratives in contemporary design education, that these studies can have ‘a direct impact on our teaching materials, on what is being taught and how in the design curricula’ (as cited in Andersen, 2017).
2.3.3 Teaching digital drawing
This section reviews the literature specific to the teaching of vector graphics, as this is the digital drawing tool introduced in Ntaria. The terminology provides the reasons for and advantages of the use of vector graphics. The review seeks to identify any relevant approaches to the teaching and learning of vector graphics and how this might be introduced within a Aboriginal high school context.
Most current literature on vector graphic education is based around ‘how to’ manuals for students or practicing professionals, featuring step-by-step tutorials, artist’s profiles, and professional advice (Elmansy, 2012; Ganovelli et al. 2014; Glitschka, 2010; Harris & Withrow, 2008). These authors assume the reader has prior knowledge of the technology and software needed to create digital graphics. Although a range of vector editing programs are referenced (Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Freehand, Fontlab, Flash, and After Effects); there is little direction on how to use the programs specifically, or how to begin working with vectors without any prior digital drawing or design knowledge. Most vector graphic reference texts assume the reader already has background, education, and skills involved in digital design. Within online spaces, there are a variety of tutorial videos related to the use of vector graphics. The online learning website Lynda.com has over 2000 training videos on vector graphics, most based within the dedicated Abode Illustrator software. Commonly, these design guides develop vector graphic ‘tutorials’, starting from simple uses of the pen tool, to fundamental shapes, moving then to drawing original shapes, selection tools, visibility controls, manipulation, and transformation. They commonly show specific vector tools in relation to basic design education, such as 2D spatial relationships (including relationships between lines, shapes and objects, and depth, background, and foreground).
50 John DiMarco in Digital Design for Print and Web (2010) takes an alternative approach, suggesting the melding of new technology, techniques, and principles causes many inexperienced designers to default to honing their computer skills, rather than establishing their design sense. DiMarco follows the concept of creativity first, produce second. DiMarco’s approach is to teach designers to engage in using theory in practice. ‘Finding teaching resources, especially textbooks, is difficult; most simply don’t deliver the depth and breadth of coverage need to teach both theoretically and pragmatically’ (DiMarco, 2010, preface). He proposes that teaching methods need to connect introductory theoretical design foundations and industry standard techniques for visual communication problem solving. For example, introducing vector graphics also requires specific digital design program fundamental knowledge, such as layers, files types, grids, and guides. Yet the current literature is limited in regards to any understanding of who is learning vectors, and for what purpose. The programs are often devoid of any cultural context and predominantly focus on mastery of the tool. Therefore, they provide little guidance in approaching the development of an education program to teach digital drawing in Ntaria, where context and culture are paramount.
2.4 The value of design for Aboriginal youth
This section reviews and discusses literature pertaining to the cultural considerations and value of introducing a digital drawing tool in Ntaria. The review positions and contextualises the research within existing studies on Aboriginal youth and their engagement with digital technologies. It explores the literature in relation to digital technologies within Aboriginal communities, and the impact these tools and mediums have had on cultural traditions and youth identity. While this literature does not pertain to digital drawing specifically, it presents literature to support the value of introducing digital tools within an Aboriginal community. It explores how youth are adapting to a digitally connected world and are keen to incorporate digital technologies within their futures.
The introduction of a digital drawing tool within Ntaria School poses a significant question: ‘Will social and cultural structures fracture, or do digital drawing tools present a space for new sites of Western Arrarnta cultural practice, preserving knowledge and stories for future generations?’ As digital technologies and access to the internet (both now accessible in the majority of Aboriginal communities) have changed and altered communication systems, they too have become another part of a rich multimodal communication system. Yet, what is their value to Indigenous youth? This section introduces the capability approach as a framework to gauge the value of digital drawing and communication design education from the perspectives of Ntaria young adults.
51 2.4.1 The value of introducing visual tools
Hinkson (2002) observes that Central Desert communities are by no means passive observers of transformations sweeping their world. They adapt tools and mediums to fit their repertoire. As Hartley and McKee (2000) express, Indigenous people’s interaction with introduced tools and mediums, involves a sophisticated understanding of the politics of representation and they actively seek to use those tools, as well as other modes of communication, to their own ends. The introduction of visual tools, such as watercolour, acrylic painting, pottery, film, and television can be understood as ‘additions’ to an established Indigenous repertoire for representing place and knowledge—including storytelling, family journeying, dancing, singing, painting, and carving (Verran & Christie, 2007). These forms, continually evolving and adapting, express intimate and embodied knowledge of place, and function as performative expressions of this knowledge through the process of creating. (For an overview of the introduction of visual tools within Aboriginal communities see Appendix 1.) These case studies include the introduction of:
(1) Watercolour painting
(2) Crayon drawing
(3) Acrylic painting
(4) Television
(5) New media
(6) Pottery
(7) Digital tools and mediums.
Due to the lack of academic publications pertaining to the value of introducing other creative tools in Aboriginal communities, I have included an overview of these case studies in Appendix 1. These precedents are not part of the literature review as critical analysis is not possible. Most of the introductions were without intentional research aims, but rather developed through personal experiences and interests. The accounts of many of these case studies, cannot be critically examined as they lack reliability, with most accounts written from a personal perspective following their time in community.
52 2.4.2 The value of digital tools
Karen Martin (Noonuccal) (2003) explores how spaces that support Indigenous ‘ways of doing things’ can provide Indigenous people with a sense of control over their lives, enabling them to define their own experiences on their own terms (p. 203). Telling stories and sharing knowledge with digital tools and technology effectively acts as a ‘form of empowerment’ (Cammarota & Fine, 2008, p.47). Visual tools enable Aboriginal people to actively define their individual and social identities in visual and independent ways (Metcalf et. al., 2010).
Yet the empowering narrative of digital platforms is in contrast with the fears of ‘disenfranchising Aboriginal knowledge’ and earlier experiences of introduced technologies (Walker, 1989). Borrowing from communication technology literature, a core issue during the introduction of technologies such as radio, telephone, and television within Aboriginal communities during the 1980s was how digital practices could disrupt social relations and Indigenous ‘life-worlds’ (Myers, 2000, p.78). Researching the introduction of communication technologies with Yolngu, Helen Verran and Michael Christie expressed concerns about how new technologies effectively reduce and lock out Indigenous participation and knowledge practices (2007). They discuss fears that digital technology could disenfranchise and commodify knowledge, and marginalise Aboriginal interests and sensitivities (Verran & Christie, 2007, p.215). Yet they also express how digital tools can act to record, communicate, and keep the experiences of Elders, of being on country, in usable forms for generations to come (Verran & Christie, 2007).
However, the fears raised by Verran and Christie have not been realised. Aboriginal people continually show themselves to be adept at integrating cultural forms into new technology (Cammarota, 2008; Kral, 2011). Digital platforms have not ‘disenfranchised’ or ‘commoditised’ Indigenous knowledges, but enabled Aboriginal stories, priorities, particularly those of younger generations, to be shared between family, community, and wider Australia. Despite the high uptake and usage of digital platforms within Aboriginal communities, the value of digital tools and mediums for Aboriginal youth requires more detailed and sustained investigation.
2.4.3 The value of digital tools for Aboriginal youth
There currently exists little academic discussion on how young people in Aboriginal communities are shaping the visual, cultural, and communication uptake of digital tools. The gap in
53 understanding how digital tools are used is investigated by anthropologist Inge Kral, whose research on Indigenous youth provides an important foundation for this research. She outlines ‘accounts in public or policy discourse tend not to portray the creativity and agentive participation of remote Indigenous Australian youth in new forms of cultural practice and production’ (2011, p. 6). Young people continually show themselves to be adept at integrating cultural forms into new technology. They perceive significant differences, but also continuities, between digital and traditional modes of communication and, for the most part, are keen to incorporate the new technology into their lives (Kral, 2011).
Kral (2011) additionally reveals Aboriginal youth are gaining control over their own representations through digital tools, while exploring new forms of communication and participation. She explores how ‘many young people are embracing global digital youth culture and exploring the generativity of multimodal forms of communication, while simultaneously acting as agents for the recording and transmission of cultural memory in new forms’ (Kral, 2014, p. 16). As Kral reveals, Aboriginal youth are increasingly using digital technologies, to tell their stories, which further provides a means by which they can assert control over positive representations of themselves (Vickery, Clarke & Adams, 2005). Digital platforms enable them to perform and present Aboriginality from their perspectives, while articulating their representations when and how they choose. Kral reveals the value digital tools can bring to Aboriginal youth, and the ways they can be adapted to suit the contexts of their use.
Digital tools and environments can also support the development of identity amongst Aboriginal youth, through the telling of stories (DCITA, 2002; Notley & Tacchi, 2005). Rice, Haynes, Royce, and Thompson (2016) discuss how strong cultural identity can be enhanced through digital spaces. While focusing on social media, they argue the familiarity that many Indigenous young people have over modern technology is giving them a sense of fearlessness and control when approaching the use of digital platforms—providing an opportunity for them to participate and communicate in new ways (Rice et al., 2016, pp. 3-4). These digital platforms also allow Indigenous young adults the opportunity to present their Aboriginal identities to others, which helps them further define and affirm identity (De Largy Healy, 2013; Lumby, 2010). Developing youth identity through digital tools is reinforced by professor of education Bridgid Barron, who suggests that digital technologies enable new kinds of agency in learning, and building up ‘a sense of self as one who is knowledgeable’ (2006, p.198). Digital platforms and tools present opportunities for self-representation, the articulation of identity, and the reinforcement of cultural knowledge, while also presenting opportunities for visual expression.
54 There is growing evidence of the value of digital tools for Aboriginal youth. Christie and Verran suggest digital mediums create new spaces of representation and support established traditional performances (2013). Kral points to the growing prevalence of digital communication by and between youth in everyday, out-of-school life. That is, young people are exploring the ‘creative generativity of multimodal forms of communication enabled by digital mediums’ (Kral, 2014, p.171). Within digital spaces of representation and identity, Barbara Glowczewski (2013) argues Indigenous peoples use digital mediums ‘as an attempt to transform the perception we have constructed of them through social sciences and other discourses that precisely deny them agency by not taking into account their voice, social practices and desires’ (p. 105). Glowczewski further argues digital platforms can translate and enhance Indigenous agency as a dynamic, flexible way of reproducing cultural and ritual practice, but also in their struggles for social justice. This is also true of any digital space where image and symbols, or a graphical ‘language’ can be utilised to assert identity, politics, and value. This is a symbolic shift from being ‘the object of other people’s image-making practices’ (Ginsburg, 2008, p.139) to becoming the producers of visual outcomes made by local people for a local audience. This can only be further enhanced by making digital drawing tools accessible for youth within Aboriginal communities, and understanding and examining its value.
2.4.4 Understanding the value of digital drawing in Ntaria
As this research seeks to explore the value afforded through digital drawing and design education, the focus here is understanding how design can contribute to futures the young adults involved within the study value. This section introduces the capability approach as a framework to gauge the value of the introduction of digital drawing according to the dimensions the participants have identified. After providing an introduction to the capability approach and key concepts, approaches that apply the capability approach to design are discussed, before examining this approach within the context of Indigenous communities. The strategies and recommendations associated with identifying capabilities of young adults in Ntaria are presented.
Key concepts of the capability approach
The combination of design, education, and development is sometimes discussed under ‘design for development,’ ‘alternative design,’ ‘sustainable design’ or ‘design in a poor context’. These design- based approaches do not seem to provide a suitable holistic, in-depth, evaluative tool for this research, focused on the value of digital drawing and communication design education from the
55 perspectives of the Ntaria young adults involved in the study. Therefore a theoretical approach that focuses on opportunities for self-defined concepts of value applied within a design context provides a more suitable approach. An initial answer to evaluating how design can contribute to self-defined lives that people value is based on the capability approach. The capability approach is successfully used to assess quality of life, based on what people are able to be and to do (Sen, 1999). It shows how social justice and human development require understanding people’s independent values and perspectives. This conceptual framework provides a way to assess value, engagement, and meaning from the perspectives of Ntaria youth. The capability approach affords people and groups the freedom to select the dimensions they value as opposed to them being prescribed externally.
The capability approach is a development theory pioneered by economist Amartya Sen (1979, 1993, 1999) and ethics philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2000). Their approach asserts that human development should be concerned with the expansion of freedoms to live a valued life (Sen, 1999). In this view, they shift the measurement of progress from output towards the measurement of people’s capability to achieve self-defined outcomes. Here, ‘development is an expansion of the capabilities of people to lead the kinds of lives they value’ (Sen, 1999, p.18). This is in stark contrast to largely economic measures and indicators, which seem to largely ignore the reality of conditions that prevent people from leading valuable lives (Dong, 2008). The capabilities approach emphasises a person’s capability to achieve certain actions that the person deems valuable for living (Sen, 1999). Capabilities have been described as opportunities, or ‘what people are effectively able to do and be,’ or the (positive) freedom that people have ‘to enjoy valuable beings and doings’ (Sen, 1999, p.18). These beings and doings are called ‘functionings’ by Sen and can be understood as the space of potential opportunities (Sen, 1999).
One of the crucial insights of the capability approach is that what people are able to do and to be— their potential opportunities—are influenced by personal, social, and environmental conversion factors and that these should not be taken for granted. This provides a broader understanding of ‘development’ suitable to an Aboriginal community context, specifically focused on the freedom young people have to live a life that has value to them.
The capability to design
Broader notions of sustainable development and poverty alleviation often associated with the capability approach go beyond the scope of the thesis. Here the focus is on capabilities in relation to
56 design. The application of the capability approach, as it relates to design, generally falls within two main approaches within the literature. The first approach seeks to identify capabilities required to ‘achieve the desired functioning of design’; in other words, the capabilities required to ‘do’ design (Dong, 2008; Dong et al., 2013; Nichols & Dong, 2012). The second approach uses the capability approach as a guide for designers to ensure designed products or services are better able to expand the capabilities of the users (Kleine, 2011; Oosterlaken, 2009; 2012). The approach taken within this research falls within the first understanding, based on identifying the capabilities, and creating the conditions required to engage in, or ‘do’ design within an Aboriginal community school.
In the context of design, Andy Dong points to the capability approach as understanding the conditions for ‘doing’ design. He argues the question should be structured as ‘If I wanted to engage in design, what set of capabilities would I need?’ rather than asking ‘How capable of design am I?’ (2008, p. 79). He warns we must be careful not to confuse the capability to design with capability as a designer, as there is a distinction between the doing of design and the design profession (Dong, 2008). Nigel Cross also notes this distinction, discussing an innate capability to design that everyone possesses, compared with an expert designer’s ‘natural intelligence’ for design (Cross, 2001). However, from a capabilities perspective, Cross’ ‘capability’ to design is understood as what Sen calls ‘functionings’—or the things that people actually do. A capability approach to design is about creating the conditions or possibilities for people to transform their own capabilities needed to do design, into the functions of being engaged in (‘doing’) design.
The capability approach in Aboriginal communities
While government and the wider Australian community share a common goal to ‘close the gap’ on Indigenous disadvantage in regards to education, health, and economic participation, understood within the capability terminology as ‘instrumental freedoms’ (Sen, 1999, p. 38), each Aboriginal community has its own specific ideas of wellbeing. Maintaining a connection to country and culture often surpasses more measurable social and economic indicators, as Tom Calma, a former Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner states, ‘it must be accepted and acknowledged that culture is the key to caring for country, and caring for country is in turn the key to the maintenance and strengthening of our culture and wellbeing’ (Calma, 2008, pp. 6-7). A capability perspective allows for an approach to support these cultural and community specific aspirations for wellbeing.
57 There are two core components of the capability approach that situate it as an effective framework for exploring development and wellbeing within Aboriginal community contexts. Firstly, the multidimensional nature of the capability approach is compatible with a holistic understanding of wellbeing from an Indigenous perspective. Secondly, it promotes Indigenous voices and establishes the space for Indigenous peoples to define their own capabilities (Gigler, 2005, 2006; Panzironi, 2006). For Indigenous peoples to define their own priorities reflects what Sen refers to as the ‘process aspect of freedom’ (Sen, 1999).
Capabilities have been utilised as participatory, process, and evaluative frameworks within Aboriginal program development and within research contexts. Aboriginal academic and activist Noel Pearson adopted the capability approach to addressing disadvantage in his Cape York community (Pearson, 2005). Pearson situates the capability framework as a process, explaining ‘It is not about making choices for people, but is rather about expanding the range of choices people have available to them’ (p. 2). Yet scholars have critiqued the approach taken by Pearson. Jordan, Bulloch, and Buchanan (2010) suggest Pearson diverges from Sen’s capability terms and underlying concepts. For Pearson, capabilities are resources or attributes, differing from Sen’s use of the term (Jordan, Bulloch, & Buchanan, 2010, p. 347). They also note contradictions in Pearson’s use of choice, explaining ‘while choice is held up as the ultimate signifier of wellbeing, implicitly people are expected to choose certain things above others (in this case, for example, participation in the mainstream market economy)’ (Jordan, Bulloch, & Buchanan, 2010, p. 349). The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues argues that economic development can be compatible with cultural maintenance only if it is consistent with Indigenous preferences (UNDP, 2013, p. 354). Development in Aboriginal community contexts can therefore only be compatible if programs do not deny people the ability to live lives they have reason to value.
Other scholars have taken a more participatory approach to identifying relevant capabilities within Aboriginal community contexts. In her PhD thesis Annie Kennedy (2013) explores the topic of Indigenous communities and government engagement. Importantly, Kennedy’s research was based in Ntaria, and specific dimensions are understood from a Western Arrarnta perspective. For Kennedy, the capability approach provides a framework to link the value of Indigenous wellbeing choices to ‘the capability for voice, through which people are able to critically assess their choices’ (p. 237). In her ethnographic study, Kennedy suggests Sen’s framework ‘offers a way forward that might see Western Arrarnta families engaging in state wellbeing efforts as it values and makes known their wellbeing concerns and aspirations, while also supporting outstation families and governments to make
58 informed choices and decisions’ (Kennedy, 2013, p. 238). Prioritising the voices of the Western Arrarnta through the capability approach enables programs to be based on specific local values, aspirations, and dimensions of wellbeing.
Giving voice to participants’ values is also mirrored through the work of Donna Vaughan. Vaughan (2011) identifies community-defined concepts of wellbeing by adapting a participatory capability method. In her study, she argues for collective capabilities and emphasises the process aspect of freedom. She relates collective capabilities to ‘shared meanings’ in which ‘individual and group wellbeing as co-constituting each other and thereby determining how well we live together.’ (Deneulin & McGregor, 2010, p.138). These shared understandings are ‘based on the kinship structure and strong communal system that permeates all aspects of Indigenous society, and the benefits to communal well- being that arise from the individual’s freedoms to participate in this society’ (Deneulin & McGregor, 2010, p.138). While focusing on community based ICT programs, she argues ‘capabilities’ are derived from community defined concepts of well-being while ‘functionings’ are based on a communities own unique history, current development priorities, and well-being aspirations (Vaughan, 2011, p. 139)
From her study Vaughan highlights the benefits of a capability approach in understanding community specific ideas of wellbeing and recommends the ‘design and deliver[y] [of] programs which support communities in their diversity to achieve well-being’ (2011, p. 147), and ‘to adopt a more deliberative participatory approach’ (2011, p. 147) when negotiating and working with communities. From the perspective of this research, the use of the capability approach within Aboriginal community contexts from Pearson (2005), Kennedy (2013), and Vaughan (2011) raises some interesting questions. How can digital drawing be used to achieve community aspirations? What capabilities allow young adults to engage in digital drawing? What is the value of communication design education within the context of Ntaria? These questions also reflect the current gap in literature around understanding the value of communication design education within Aboriginal communities.
Identifying Ntaria capabilities
The capability approach is deliberately open and generally avoids any pre-defined components, as ‘it relies on the agency and involvement of people in different contexts to specify which capabilities to focus on’ (Alkire & Deneulin, 2009, p. 43). Sen has cautiously never endorsed any list of capabilities because he argues for their inherent contextual nature. He believes that the selection of capabilities
59 should be a democratic process, and that different lists will result from investigating or addressing different issues (Sen, 1999). Sen does not describe how capabilities should be obtained for any situation, other than preferring a democratic process (cited in Robeyns, 2005, p.106). However, Alkire (2002) argues how participatory approaches can realise capabilities, and how these are congruent with the writings of Sen. Alkire recognises the capability approach as a comprehensive theoretical framework, while detailing how participatory methods providing an extensive set of proven practice tools and techniques for applying this framework (2002).
To understand the value of digital drawing within the life-worlds of the young adults from Ntaria, participatory processes will be used to identify the capability dimensions that support participants to engage in, and ‘do’ design. Capabilities will also enable a holistic understanding and evaluation of the value of design for the Ntaria students—situated and understood on their own terms.
2.5 Summary and implications
In this chapter, the design literature was reviewed in relation to design processes and principles. The review showed that literature pertaining to design remains largely Eurocentric and shows that very few studies have related the cultural and spiritual dimensions of design to broader understandings, principles, and process. The literature discussing Indigenous perspectives indicated how design can be understood as a process of relational discovery, a recreation of story and knowledge. While from a predominantly Eurocentric position, design can be understood as a situated practice within culturally specific contexts, and through the use of tools, turns imaginings (or ideas) into forms. This research acknowledges that design as a practice is constantly evolving and is contextually dependent. This evolution requires understandings of design to move beyond Eurocentric paradigms, as different cultures possess different representations of what it means to ‘do’ and ‘practice’ design.
This review revealed a lack of literature around digital drawing within communication design, highlighting a gap in understanding how to introduce digital drawing outside a Eurocentric educational environment. The development of culturally responsive teaching styles and two- way/both-way approaches explored the importance of teacher reflexivity and a fluid approach to collaboration and partnership. Yet the review also showed that there is a lack of understanding of ‘how’ to implement these approaches in the classroom, their impact, and the inclusion of Indigenous
60 narratives. The 8-ways framework was then discussed as a grounding approach to embed Indigenous perspectives and processes within the curriculum.
Understanding the potential value of digital drawing and communication design education in Ntaria was then considered. The literature was reviewed in relation to the introduction and use of digital tools and technologies within Aboriginal communities. It suggested digital tools could provide young Aboriginal people with a platform to express their contemporary realities and lived experiences. Yet the literature exposed a gap in how to gauge and understand ‘value’ within an Aboriginal community context. The capability approach was then introduced as a framework to understand value from the perspective of the Ntaria young adults.
While this chapter attempts to contextualise the study within the current literature, the majority of published work does not directly relate to the central research question and aims of the study. The literature review therefore remains incomplete, due to the dearth of literature pertaining to the research topic and question. This in turn speaks to the significance and contribution my research hopes to make. This review showed the majority of the published literature is not relevant or applicable within the context of exploring Western Arrarnta perceptions of digital drawing and design education (detailed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6—seeking to add knowledge to this gap within the literature). The review, while narrow, draws upon and situates the research within current understandings of communication design principles and process, communication design education, and value assessments.
Questions of culture—how each of us encounters and makes sense of the world around us—have been recognised as crucial to understandings of design. Yet current research engagement with cultural approaches to communication design education and practice in Australia is extremely limited. There exists a gap in understanding Indigenous contributions or perspectives on communication design principles and process. While initial considerations for Indigenous design practice in Australia have been discussed, there exists a lack of specific, local interpretations.
This review has highlighted the insufficient attention in design research given to approaches, terminologies and processes outside of Eurocentric frameworks. There exists a gap in locating the deep cultural and spiritual knowledge of Indigenous cultures within definitions of design and knowledge inherent within the design process. In the literature, Indigenous concepts of design are understood as a process of respectful, reflective, and relational discovery. There also exists a lack of research around digital tool use and design imaginings from Indigenous young adults. Current
61 understandings of design process and design education also do not reflect the complex, interrelated creative forms that exist in Aboriginal communities—continually in flux—while generating new ideas, concepts, and practices across generations.
Current discussions on communication design education are marginally useful to this research, as they remain embedded within Eurocentric concepts and approaches to teaching and learning. The introduction of digital drawing in Ntaria requires an approach informed by Indigenous knowledges and pedagogies, as educational approaches need to be re-contextualised in order to successfully encompass aspects of social and cultural practice. The teaching and learning of digital drawing in Ntaria requires an alternative learning model, as conceptual understandings, perspectives of process, and the potential commercialisation of design in Ntaria differs greatly from Eurocentric paradigms.
The review noted a lack of diverse cultural approaches to communication design education. Within the construct of vocational communication design education, globally and within Australia, the existing curriculum is largely entrenched within a Eurocentric learning framework of what constitutes communication design practice. This framework is largely geared towards producing students for a Eurocentric industry. Current literature does not sufficiently engage with the social, cultural, and participatory context of the teaching and learning of design. There is a scarcity of cultural voices in the existing literature, but these can be built upon, and expanded, by including more diverse cultural voices.
Through establishing a gap in the literature around Indigenous approaches to principles and process, it poses an interesting question around how to gauge their value within an Aboriginal community. To develop a culturally responsive framework, to assess value, requires an approach situated and contextualised within Western Arrarnta social and cultural practice, ways of learning, sharing, and creating. As current design literature fails to account for the diverse knowledges of students and ways of learning, a prerequisite for an education project in Ntaria is an understanding of the capabilities of young adults from Ntaria School.
The findings from the literature must now be integrated into the research approach. Chapter 3 unpacks the methodological and theoretical foundations for this study and explains how these key concepts, detailed thought the literature review, are operationalised and integrated into a research approach, educational model and analytical framework.
62 Interlude: Pace
Figure 2.3: Learning to digitally draw in the Ntaria School classroom. The students are drawing things important to them, representing themselves and their interests through digital visual communication on the iPad
The reality of delivering design workshops at Ntaria School was both challenging and frustrating. Getting the students to engage with learning digital drawing in the classroom was hard. As a new teacher, and someone with no experience within a secondary school context, it was an uncomfortable experience for me, and required a steep learning curve. My day-to-day teaching often felt like a series of interruptions to my scheduled plan. Getting the students to stay in the classroom was tricky enough, without interruptions from external service providers, family demands, funerals, and sports carnivals—all taking precedence over any planned design activity. A design workshop could begin, only to be interrupted by a visiting AFL coach, an external career mentor arriving from Alice Springs, a dentist arriving at the community clinic for their rare visit, a guest from the department of education, a German troupe of volunteers—the interruptions became so common that design workshops began to unfold in a slower, and more responsive way.
I realised I needed to resolve my own ideas and expectations around who I was as an educator and researcher. To come to a place where we could teach and learn digital drawing together. As
63 Indigenous educator Lillian Holt details, researching with Indigenous communities can be a process of ‘exploring one’s own discomfort’ (2001, p. 149). This was personally challenging in ways I didn’t expect. Working with these students required me to confront my ignorance and realise the extent of my privilege.
My role as a teacher was at times exhausting, heartbreaking, and emotional. Navigating through the complex legacies of discrimination, inter-generational trauma, and schooling with Indigenous adolescents was challenging. I quickly realised that many of the participants did not know how to read or write and my understanding of what it was to ‘be a student’ had to be quickly re-evaluated. I was not prepared for the realities of the galling educational gap within Aboriginal communities.
These interruptions and frustrations were also compounded by the fact that the majority of students barely spoke to me in my first few months. I was ‘another outsider’, and with a high teacher turnover, there was a distinct pattern of white teacher arriving, only to leave a few weeks later. As someone who turned up, week after week, returning across the three years of this research project, I came to be seen as someone who cared, and slowly, someone who could be trusted. This came to signify what anthropologist Diana Austin-Broos describes as ‘both being emplaced and the passage of time’ (2009, p. 130). From a Western Arrarnta perspective of relatedness, over time I began to develop connection.
The students’ engagement with me was underpinned by this ‘passage of time’ and it was something that happened in very ordinary ways. It was about slowing down. Just talking—about boyfriends, family, music. About everyday life. Letting the girls do my hair and paint my nails. Hanging out with the fellas and watching them play footy. Slowing down meant we began to generate ongoing dialogue. It allowed time and space for me to recognise that each participant had a different response to what design was in Ntaria. And that there were no incorrect perceptions of its meaning, or ways of doing design. By listening to different perspectives, through the process of making and designing, we began to see more clearly our own positions and responses. Arts-based researcher Patricia Leavy describes this process for participants as making the strange familiar and for the researcher, making the familiar strange (2017, p. 658).
Over time, by going through this discomfort and frustration, I was able to develop a more empathetic understanding of the interruptions to student learning, community priorities, and the complexities and contradictions inherent in being a young adult in Ntaria.
64 Chapter 3: Research Approach
3.1 Scope and outline
‘If research doesn’t change you as a person, then you haven’t done it right’ (Wilson, 2008, p. 135)
The purpose of this chapter is to explain the methodological and theoretical approaches to this research, providing a context for the research question, and detailing the strategy adopted to answer it. The Ntaria Design Research Framework, presented visually in Figure 3.1, represents the underlying principles and components of the research approach. The framework encompasses methodology, theoretical underpinning, and data collection techniques. The key concepts of the framework and the relationships between them are unpacked in this chapter.
Figure 3.1: The Ntaria Design Research Framework. An overview of the research approach
65 Central to this research are the Ntaria students and their digital drawings. The research question is framed to prioritise their perceptions of design principles and processes, design education, and its subsequent value. Therefore, the research framework also centres the students and their experiences, engaging methodological and theoretical approaches that align with and allow for participant engagement, agency, and voice. By centring the students, it also challenged the role of the researcher, requiring ongoing transformation and collaboration on how things were ultimately done.
Section 3.2 outlines the research methodology and its rationale. Explored here is how a participatory approach has been applied within this research and the relationship to strength-based approaches and researcher reflexivity. The combination of youth-based participatory action research, strength- based, and reflexive approaches provided a research methodology that was responsive, collaborative, and reflected the importance of relationships and trust within the research process.
Section 3.3 addresses the theoretical underpinning of the study. This is done in three parts. Firstly, key findings and implications from the introduction of other visual tools within Aboriginal communities are discussed. Secondly, theoretical foundations as they pertain to Indigenous pedagogies are described and how Indigenous pedagogies informed the design workshops. Thirdly, the capability approach is used as a theoretical framework in relation to gauging value. Here capabilities are used as an evaluative tool, enabling an assessment of the value of digital drawing and communication design education based on factors defined from the participants themselves.
Specific data collection techniques are explained in section 3.4. The techniques support participatory approaches, enabling a range of ways for students to engage, explore, and communicate. The combination of visual and oral data collection methods, including design workshops, card sorting, interviews, observations, and a self-reflection survey created spaces for students to explore their own imagining and perceptions of design in ways that were comfortable to them.
Section 3.5 presents the approach to analysing the data, largely drawing on a thematic analysis. Described here is how the students informed and were involved in the analysis. This was undertaken through three rounds of analysis, with each informing and influencing the next. The three rounds were used to explore the students’ digital drawings, perceptions of design, and to assess the value of communication design education in Ntaria.
66 Finally, the ethics and consent processes obtained throughout the study are described in section 3.6, before concluding with a chapter summary in section 3.7.
3.2 Methodology
The purpose of this section is to detail the research approach developed to undertake this project, which has been shaped and driven in part by the findings of the literature review. The overarching methodological framework interweaves strength-based, participatory, and reflexive approaches in order to listen to and prioritise the voices, perspectives, and representations of Aboriginal young adults. This aims to centre the imaginings and perceptions of the Ntaria young adults. Indigenous research principles largely support participatory and reflexive research practices, enabling a collaborative space to conduct research together, while remaining aware of the differences of our worldviews and knowledges (Chilisa, 2011; Singh & Major, 2017; Smith, 1999). How these concepts interrelated to inform and guide the research is outlined below.
3.2.1 Starting with strengths
An aspiration of this research was to work towards a decolonising of communication design education. In her seminal book Decolonising Methodologies, professor of Indigenous education from
New Zealand, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngati Awa & Ngati Porou) (1999) states decolonising methodologies are around ‘centring [Indigenous] concepts and worldviews and then come to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes’ (p.39). This allows research to be approached and evaluated in different ways, confronting Eurocentric epistemologies that are inherently foreign to Indigenous people and continue to silence Indigenous knowledges (Smith, 1999). Smith is speaking here to a decolonising research agenda initiated, devised, and carried out by Indigenous researchers. That decolonising research is always based on knowledge created by Indigenous people rather than about them Smith, 1999). Therefore, while the work of Indigenous scholars is drawn on to inform the research approach, a decolonising methodology cannot be successfully applied within this context. Therefore, Indigenous research approaches that guide the research are explored below, and how a strength-based approach can be applied to centre Western Arrarnta worldviews within the research.
67 What are Indigenous principles and approaches?
In order to centre an Indigenous worldview and apply a strength-based approach within this research, it is essential to describe and draw from the approaches of Indigenous scholars (Chilisa, 2011; Kovach, 2010; Smith, 2012; Wilson, 2008). Indigenous methodologies, as an extension of Indigenous studies, seek to regenerate Indigenous ways of knowing within research and educational spaces, for Indigenous peoples by Indigenous peoples (Smith, 2012). Indigenous approaches emphasise community-initiated or community-based research, with community participation in all stages of research from design to outcomes, stressing fluidity and flexibility throughout (Berryman et al., 2013; Hokowhitu, 2009; Loppie, 2007; Smith, 2005; Yunkaporta, 2009).
Indigenous academics globally are presenting a rethinking of the research process and presenting emerging research approaches and techniques, which have at their core Indigenous worldviews, values, and ethics (Bishop, 2005; Chilisa, 2011; Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith 2008; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Nakata, 1998; Rigney, 1997; Smith, 1999, 2005). Indigenous research methods are distinct from other methods, not because they are so different to common methods of social science, but because of the theories that guide them (Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019). Indigenous research methods emerge from Indigenous epistemologies or knowledge frameworks and are always people and place specific (Smith, 2012; Tuck & McKenzie, 2015). Indigenous researchers recognise that knowledges are ‘socially situated, partial and grounded in subjectivities and experiences of everyday life’ (Moreton-Robinson & Walter, 2009, p. 2). While Indigenous research methods can be used across diverse contexts, Indigenous researchers advocate for the need to always tailor approaches to specific cultural and social contexts to match community needs and understandings of knowledges and knowing (Smith, 2012; Tuck & McKenzie, 2015; Wilson, 2008).
One of the core principles is that understanding knowledge is relational. For Indigenous researchers, what is most ‘important and meaningful is fulfilling a role and obligations in the research relationship— that is, being accountable to your relations’ (Wilson, 2008, p. 77). Approaches are built upon the concept of ‘relational accountability’ (Wilson, 2008, p. 77). Creating and maintaining respectful and mutually beneficial relationships between researchers and Indigenous communities are imperative
(Smith, 2012; Tuck & Guishard, 2013; Wilson, 2008). Steve Patrick (Warlpiri) explains for Indigenous epistemologies, knowledges lie within relationships, not in separate parts (Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu, Holmes, & Box 2008, p. 15). Chilisa (2011, pp. 108-122) reminds us that relationships are more than
68 those between researcher and participant, but about broader relations with community and knowledge.
Deborah Bird Rose (2004) describes the need for an ‘ethic of relational responsibility’ which she claims is central to indigenous research approaches. This requires a broader understanding of the relationship between the researcher and the researched, as Rose calls for researchers to be accountable for the knowledges and meanings derived from the study (2004). These arguments surmise that ‘Indigenous research needs to reflect Indigenous contexts and worldviews’ and are set within, ‘a fundamental belief that knowledge is relational’ (Wilson, 2001, p. 176). The question then remains as to how non-Indigenous researchers can apply these principles in research projects that engage with Indigenous communities.
How can non-Indigenous researchers apply Indigenous research principles?
While many Indigenous writers remain critical of non-Indigenous researchers working within Indigenous research contexts (Nakata, 2007; Rigney, 2006), there are recommended approaches. Indigenous scholars advocate for researchers wanting to engage in research with Indigenous peoples to first engage with the history of Indigenous research to understand what is at stake (Bishop, 2005; Chilisa, 2011; Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008; Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003; Nakata, 1998; Rigney, 1997; Smith, 1999). Indigenous researchers demonstrate that inappropriate and insensitive research has ‘led to a continuing oppression and subordination of Indigenous Australians in every facet of Australian society to the point that there is no-where that we can stand that is free of racism’ (Rigney, 1999, p. 113). Describing the overarching research experience of many Indigenous people, Lowitja
O’Donoghue (Yankunytjatjara) states:
Until very recently … research has been a very top-down approach. For Aboriginal people, this has meant we have been amongst the most studied and researched group in the world … few if any tangible benefits have flowed to our people, as the research papers and the academic accolades have stacked up. Researchers have, by and large, defined the problems and sought solutions that they have seen as the correct, ‘scientific’ way to go. (Lowitja O'Donoghue 1998, cited in Henry et al.
2002, p. 12)
This legacy has created significant damage in stigmatising Indigenous people, dismissing their knowledges as irrelevant. Acknowledging this history, allows for a questioning and rethinking of the
69 research process and how it can be positioned to ethically and respectfully engage with Indigenous ways of learning and gaining knowledge.
Secondly, Indigenous researchers insist that research needs to be conducted and evaluated in ways that are inclusive of worldviews and knowledge-making practices of the group being researched (Rigney, 1999; Smith, 1999). By centring Indigenous concepts and worldviews, such as ways of being, knowing, and doing, non-Indigenous researchers have opportunities to engage and explore how they could do research differently. Martin and Mirraboopa suggest Aboriginal people learn about the world and operate within it through ‘ways of knowing, ways of being, and ways of doing’ (2003). Ways of knowing are the ways learning takes place about the entities of country, plants, animals, land, water, climate, and people. Ways of being are how people are relational to the world. Ways of doing are the ceremonies, creative outcomes, languages, and traditions (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003). Yet Chilisa (2011) states that research methods and evaluative frameworks are still generally drawn from ‘developed world literature’ (p.8). Thereby, centring Indigenous worldviews questions the framing of not just the research approach, but the research question itself, as well as how the research is analysed and evaluated in relation to the knowledges and perspectives of the participants (Chilisa, 2011).
Lastly, Indigenous researchers advocate for the integral importance of relationships within the research process, as described by Smith (2005):
For Indigenous and other marginalized communities, research … is at a very basic level about establishing, maintaining, and nurturing reciprocal and respectful relationships, not just among people as individuals but also with people as individuals, as collectives, and as members of communities, and with humans who live in and with other entities in the environment. The abilities to enter pre-existing relationships; to build, maintain, and nurture relationships; and to strengthen connectivity are important research skills in the Indigenous arena. (p. 97)
It becomes clear researchers need to engage and develop relationships with the communities in which they are working. To listen and work within community specific ways of being, knowing, and doing to ensure participation, collaboration, and reciprocity. Through reciprocal and respectful relationships researchers can gain trust to ensure an ethical process, one based in accountability and integrity. Indigenous academics continue to argue that research that ignores Indigenous ways of knowing cannot be considered rigorous in terms of research conduct, and therefore the results will remain questionable in terms of their usefulness (Cochran et al. 2008, p. 2).
70 Drawing from Indigenous research approaches, researchers need to become collaborators in projects and processes that respect Indigenous aspirations and privilege Indigenous voices. Establishing and maintaining relationships allows for better understandings of participant aspirations and how this research can be both useful to and fit within established cultural practice. Denzin sees the researcher’s task as to, ‘…allow ordinary people to speak out and articulate the interpretive theories that they use to make sense of their lives’ (1997, p.26). Hohaia, Hall, and Emmanouil identify the importance of doing decolonising research to ‘build on the foundational work undertaken by Indigenous scholars to evolve, adapt and apply decolonising and Indigenous knowledge practice to new contexts’ (2017, p.5).
This building and applying has been mirrored across current research within Aboriginal communities, with non-Indigenous researchers engaging in research with their participants and presenting emerging ways of doing research differently (Edwards-Vandenhoek, 2018; Hall, 2016; Kennedy, 2015; Verran, 2013). Working together offers a way for knowledge systems to co-exist and to co-create research approaches and priorities together.
The research approach employed in this thesis is informed by and builds on the work of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, particularly those engaged in participatory research in Aboriginal community contexts—presenting approaches of how to create a space to research together.
A strength-based approach
Strength-based approaches have emerged in response to the ongoing deficit discourse within Indigenous research, particularly within Aboriginal communities who are often framed in a narrative of negativity and failure (Fforde et al. 2013). While the dominant discourse remains one of ‘lack’, or of ‘closing the gap’, Fogarty and Wilson (2016) argue that this is not how most Indigenous people perceive themselves. Priest et al. (2016) adding that these narratives within research have resulted in overlooking the strengths and assets of Indigenous children. Strengths-based approaches seek to move away from the traditional problem-based paradigm and offer a different language (Foley & Schubert, 2013; Wolf 2016). Working within an Indigenous health and wellbeing context, Fogarty, et al. (2018) illustrated 11 types of strength-based approaches, many aligning with Indigenous research principles and approaches. Gibson et al. (2020) further group these types into six dimensions for working with Indigenous communities: Listen respectfully; Build genuine relationships; Use
71 appropriate communication skills; Critically reflect on Australia’s political, historical and social context; Apply a human-rights based approach and finally evaluation of the processes and outcomes.
By seeking to identify and amplify strengths, opportunities, and positive characterises of the Ntaria young adults, this research draws on a strength-based narrative, in-part informed by the dimensions proposed by Gibson et al. (2020) and Fogarty et al. (2018). A strength-based approach been applied through the positioning of the research question and teaching and learning approaches—prioritising Ntaria voices and perspectives. The research question is positioned to be inclusive of worldviews and knowledge making processes of the participants. To answer the research question requires the participants to perceive design from their own worldviews, in their own context, and in their own words. Setting the question in this way allowed the study to be positioned from the participants’ perspectives in understanding what design means to them and its value in Ntaria. It requires the researcher to listen respectfully, build relationships, while evaluating the findings in relation to a Western Arrarnta worldview. It created a space for design to be imagined outside Eurocentric understandings and prioritise specific Western Arrarnta perceptions.
The design and delivery of the design workshops used to introduce the Ntaria senior students to digital drawing also draw on strength-based approaches. As discussed in section 2.4.1, framing the study were Indigenous pedagogies, particularly the 8-ways framework (Yunkaporta, 2009). This enabled the communication and teaching of design to be guided by Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous ways of learning. It changed the narrative of communication design education to focus on local imaginings and perceptions. This positioning allowed for a critical reflection and rethinking of communication design education, drawing not from common Eurocentric studio-based models of education, but looking instead at embedding education within Western Arrarnta knowledge practice, history, Country, community, and culture. Smith states the work of Indigenous education is important to create ‘new approaches to education that theorise, revitalise, enhance, and produce Indigenous educational experiences that support Indigenous futures’ (Smith in Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019, p. 6).
The interactions with the Ntaria young adults also reflect one of the core tenets of a strength-based approach. Our relational understanding, which developed organically through the research project, allowed for a different kind of understanding, communication, and positioning of teacher and student relations. Smith (2019) relates that:
72 The relationality of teaching is so immediate, so urgent, that it doesn’t allow itself to be overshadowed. It helps to remind that much of what we are looking at, what we are studying when we are doing educational research, is engaging in and simultaneously seeking to know more about relationships and relationality. (Smith in Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019, p. 9)
This resulted in actively engaged students in the research instead of being merely passive participants.
The approach to data analysis was again informed by strength-based approaches, evaluating the research according to the priorities of the Ntaria young adults, and their own narratives. The analysis gave agency to the participants to determine the value and meaning of the study on their own terms, and in their own words. Utilising capabilities as an evaluative tool is underpinned by Indigenous research principles—to come to know and understand research from participants’ perspectives and for participants’ purposes (Smith, 1999). The research is therefore evaluated according to the priorities and criteria the participants defined.
Given the most salient features of Indigenous research principles and strength-based approaches have been defined, and their application within the research discussed, their intersections and implications for participatory and reflexive approaches will be examined.
3.2.2 Participatory research
Participatory research approaches have greatly developed over the last decade (Chilisa, 2011; Martin, 2008; Smith, 1999, 2012; Wilson, 2008). Close collaboration between communities and researchers have proven to be fundamental.
Participatory approaches offer a methodology able to access the fine details that make up the Ntaria young adults’ use and perceptions of digital drawing and communication design education. As collaborative types of qualitative inquiry, participatory research is generally identified as being compatible with the goals and emerging reform agenda for research involving Indigenous peoples in Australia and internationally (Denzin, 1989; Martin, 2003; Nakata, 2011; Smith, 1999, 2005). Research regarding development with Indigenous people suggests the equal and collaborative methods that prioritise empowerment and self-determination for participants foster a sense of ownership in the research group, leading to better outcomes (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005). These approaches suit research that requires ongoing participation, collaboration, and reflection. As Denzin describes:
73 These are narrative, performative methodologies, research practices that are reflexively consequential, ethical, critical, respectful, and humble. These practices require that scholars live with the consequences of their research actions. (Denzin in Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p.936)
The core tenet of participatory research is research done ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ local communities. Its distinguishing features are: ‘shared ownership of research projects, community-based analysis of social problems, and an orientation toward community action' (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005, p. 560). Participatory action research (PAR) ties action and research together in a series of continuous improvement cycles that generally contain four steps: observe, reflect, plan, and act (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). All group members make actionable decisions throughout the project that guide direction of the research. Kemmis and McTaggart present seven key features of PAR, which can be summarised as:
(1) a social process (2) participatory (3) practical and collaborative (4) emancipatory (5) critical (6) reflexive (7) aims to transform both theory and practice. (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005, pp. 566–568)
Looking critically at participatory and action-based research approaches; there exists a debate about the realities of true ‘participatory’ research projects. Working on an empowering research strategy with South Asian women, Bowes (1996) points out that ‘action research over-emphasizes experience, and should be required to discuss the nature of its research element more reflexively’ (p. 15). Brady (2000) identifies that the adoption of PAR approaches does not provide any guarantee that ‘empowering’ consequences will be realised by marginalised or minority communities. It is clear that simply engaging in PAR methods does not result in participants being ‘empowered’ while the role of the researcher needs to be more reflexive throughout the life of the project. Working within Indigenous education, Melodie Bat also questions whether ‘participating’ in itself is enough? (2008).
Participation has an individual orientation, whereas collaboration has a group orientation—this has stronger resonance with the requirements for effective cross-cultural research … The role and
74 responsibility of the researcher needs refinement, for clearly it is not just facilitation that is required in this research context, but also collaboration. (Bat, 2008, p. 7)
Bat advocates for a shift from participating to collaborating. This also includes the implementation of the research, or the practical action or doing:
In collaborative, cross-cultural research it is not the specific methodology that ensures validity, although there are methodologies which resonant with Indigenous methods, but rather it is the use of the methodology that creates this ethical space where everyone is welcome, where relationships of respect and trust are created and where the how is perhaps more important than the what. (Bat, 2008, p. 8)
Focusing on the ‘how’ of methodology allows for an understanding that it is not simply the specific methodology itself that creates a participatory research approach, but rather its application that leads to collaboration and empowerment.
In Australia, the majority of PAR studies have focused on empowerment through education and improved health (Liamputtong, 2009). PAR is increasingly being utilised in research projects with Indigenous participants as it easily facilitates the flow of two-way knowledges between research and community. Collaboration is enhanced by providing an environment where members can create their own solutions to issues they identify (Esler, 2008; Israel et al., 1998). The features of PAR most relevant for use in Aboriginal communities are the importance given to the current lives and situations of the participants, its assumed imperative for change, and its iterative cycles that emphasise planning, acting, observing, and reflecting (Coghlan & Brannick, 2001).
Youth perspectives and YPAR
Though there are many approaches to participatory research that could have been utilised within this project, YPAR was chosen because of its focus on privileging youth voices. YPAR is an extension of the PAR process to youth participants (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). This approach values the voices and knowledges of youth, challenges the injustices that many marginalised youth experience, and empowers participants to make changes in their communities (Cammarota & Fine, 2010). YPAR recognises that young people are often socially constructed in ways that do not match their realities or potential (Lesko, 1996a, 1996b). It allows young people to ‘contest, challenge, respond to, and negotiate the use and misuse of power in their lives’ (Ginwright & James, 2002, p. 35). Research is
75 therefore conducted ‘with’ youth, around the issues they find most important in their lives. YPAR engages young participants, but as in other forms of participatory research, not necessarily in all phases of the project. Similarly, the YPAR process is also iterative, cyclical, and action-oriented, and shifts as the needs of young people and community change. It is a fitting framework in relation to identifying capabilities.
Mirra, Garcia, and Morrell (2015) point to YPAR offering a different purpose to teaching and learning, based on the realisation of students’ capabilities in all areas of life. They propose a set of questions, which positions YPAR as a fitting approach for working with Indigenous young adults:
YPAR asks, why can’t personal experience be valued as a valid form of data? Or the oral histories passed down through generations in a community? YPAR encourages young people to explore traditional ideas of knowledge production and use forms of creative expression to share what they know. YPAR also debunks the notion that adult researchers cannot create bonds with participants in their research or take personal part in the research process itself. It encourages us to reconsider how we know what we know and what might be the best methods with which to express that knowledge. (Mirra, Garcia, & Morrell, 2015, p. 4)
These participatory methodologies are largely accepted and supported within Indigenous community contexts because they ‘emphasise respect for the individual and a commitment to social change’ (St. Denis, 1992, p. 51).
Karen Hawkins (2015), working in the field of early childhood research, supports an ongoing process approach to collaborative learning within PAR:
It appeared that I was looking for a research design that would in itself become a social practice. Therefore, I sought a research design that would encourage a social process of collaborative learning and transformation, open communicative space, uphold prior knowledge and listen to and value the voice of each participant. (2015, p. 468)
This emergent journey of learning, based on collaboration supports the notion that validity lies in the use of the methodology (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Therefore, it is essential to document the application of these methodologies, where relationships of respect, trust, and care are created through the doing. (See section 7.3.2 for an assessment of the research methods, and the studies on trustworthiness and authenticity.) It is also imperative, within the ‘doing’ that researchers are
76 incorporated into these collaborative research projects by undertaking reflexive research praxis of their own. This strengthens the likelihood that young Indigenous voices will be heard and privileged. As YPAR offers a collaborative approach to teaching and learning, it is also imperative to draw upon suitable educational frameworks that centre and privilege the voices and knowledges of the participants, while fitting within locally informed and culturally appropriate capabilities and aspirations.
Participatory design
PAR approaches are built upon critical social science perspectives, and although increasingly common in social science research, there are similar collaborative approaches that are specifically utilised within design research. Participatory design approaches value local participation, learning through action, collective decision making, and empowerment through group activities (Könings, Seidel, & van Merriënboer, 2014; Schuler & Namioka, 1993). On the surface, they appear similar to those of PAR. The traditional model for participatory design can be described as follows: firstly, designers team up with people and selected stakeholders to do co-creation or participatory design. Then together, often in workshops, stakeholder needs and problems are identified and lastly, new solutions are developed. It is almost taken for granted that participants are available, have the skills for contributing to the design process, and will be able to work together in an egalitarian manner.
Studies have shown that concepts of participatory design struggle outside a Eurocentric context. Increasingly, scholars have articulated how participatory design methodologies are used to advance the goals of user-centred design without emphasising the inclusion of marginalised perspectives in design processes (Nieusma, 2004; Norman, 1988; Winschiers-Theophilus, Bidwell, & Blake, 2012). Situated in Namibia, researchers Kapuire, Winschiers-Theophilus, and Blake explored participatory design with a specific focus on the benefits for participants and community (2015). Their aim was to collaborate and design a digital system where community members could collect, curate, and transfer Indigenous knowledges digitally to make it available for the next generation. Kapuire, Winschiers-Theophilus, and Blake’s study highlighted that the concept of participation in itself is not universal while reinforcing the notion that ‘cultural differences potentially affect the manner in which users are able to participate in, design, and act as subjects’ (Oyugi, Dunckley, & Smith, 2008, p. 318). In their critique of participatory design, Winschiers-Theophilus, Bidwell, and Blake discuss how ‘design discourse has merely scratched the surface in unpacking meanings about participation and the ways these meanings affect design outcomes’ (2012, p. 89), demonstrating that common participatory
77 design methods based on Eurocentric communication structures are often incompatible with other cultural models, communication, and social habits. These studies point to the unequal power dynamics present within participatory design processes between Eurocentric designers and Indigenous groups. Participatory design processes largely fall short of creating an inclusive design environment and lacked nuanced approaches to, and understandings of, participation.
The lack of ‘true’ participation across cultures within design contexts suggests participatory design is not a robust or truly collaborative approach. Cultures and communities based on other value systems conceptualise ‘participation’ differently, and this understanding directly affects the design process. Working with an Indigenous group within a design setting requires an approach that privileges Indigenous perspectives, and gives power to Indigenous voices, not those of Eurocentric designers. Thus, the concept of participation in design needs to be explored from a different viewpoint.
Applying a YPAR approach within this research
While an overview of YPAR is discussed above, this section focuses on its application. It details how it was applied within the research to enable the young adult participants’ agency and voice within an ongoing, iterative research process. Participatory research employs elements from orthodox research such as data gathering and data analysis, but they are secondary to collaboration and dialogue that seeks to empower and develop a sense of self-determination amongst participants and the wider community (Reason, 1994; Tandon, 1989). Drawing from decolonising principles, Indigenous approaches ask of researchers to go ‘beyond the rhetoric’ of participatory research.
As highlighted above, the application of participatory approaches, rather than the specific methodology, creates collaborative and participatory research. First and foremost, YPAR requires participation. Therefore, stimulating initial participation, and then supporting and maintaining ongoing active participation was critical. The young adults were engaged in multiple rounds of conversation at the beginning of the research project, with discussions happening before the research commenced to gauge student interest in the project. The students’ interests and aspirations guided the development of the design workshops. This created a collective ownership of the research processes and outcomes and promoted mutual trust and respectful relationships from the outset. The delivery of the design workshops was then a consequence of the initial participation opportunities, and the creation of a meaningful collaborative space. Participation and resultant relationships were also formed on the participants’ terms. The students chose when and how they wanted to participate.
78 The research, teaching, and data collection techniques remained adaptable to ensure the students felt comfortable and respected.
The combination of YPAR and Indigenous methodologies enabled the research to draw on the strengths of the participants’ real-world knowledge. Here, personal experience was valued as a valid form of data. Prioritising participants’ perceptions and knowledges ensured the project respected Indigenous ways of knowing. This also enabled the researcher’s role to become that of a facilitator within the project, rather than expert. The researcher’s role—framed as both a researcher and educator—contributed to capability building through sharing skills and collaboratively undertaking research useful to the participants, school and wider community. From this framing, it allowed the students to be the experts of their own experiences, knowledges, and perceptions.
YPAR was also applied through an iterative approach to collaborative learning, again highlighting how YPAR and Indigenous methodologies have come together in this research. YPAR evolves in cyclical fashion in response to the accumulation of evidence, allowing for the participants’ ways of being, knowing, and doing to guide our learning journey (O’Brien & Moules, 2007). The research progressed in line with these cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.
The design workshops remained adaptable to the social and cultural context of Ntaria, both in terms of content and delivery. As students’ knowledge increased, the learning materials adapted to students wanting to apply their digital drawing skills to different contexts and outcomes. The iterative approach to learning enabled the students to lead the program in directions that were useful within their own community, as we worked towards learning together. This approach also enabled each stage of the data gathering to be grounded in reflections formed from previous data.
To evaluate participation within the research, it is also imperative to reflect on our collaboration, and to account for movement, fragility, fluidity, and change within collaborative research relationships. The following section addresses research reflexivity within the research approach, and how this was informed by participatory principles.
3.2.3 Researcher reflexivity
For non-Indigenous researchers, a participatory and strength-based approach necessitates both a reflexive and relational approach based on respectful and ethical interactions (Barton, 2004). Consequently, researchers need to engage with reflexive evaluation of collective and negotiated
79 design, data collection, and data analysis to consider interpersonal and collective dynamics during the research process (Nicholls, 2008). This enables an evaluation of the ‘messiness’ that emerges in collaborative projects and an ability to acknowledge ‘internal conflicts and contradictions’ (Fawcett & Hearn, 2004, p. 211). Similarly, Nagar emphasises the researcher’s need to reconceptualise their place within collaboration as ‘a fissured space of fragile and fluid networks of connections and gaps’ (2003, p. 359). To be reflexive therefore requires an appreciation of the ambiguity and fluidity within participatory and collaborative research.
Kowal (2006) argues researchers can find reflexive processes painful and experience feelings of vulnerability, but it is these feelings that lead to necessary negotiations within the research space and prove a commitment to Indigenous research practices. Researchers must de-centre themselves and challenge traditional notions of researcher and participant control. As Lous Heshusius suggests, researchers can begin ‘describing ourselves and our work in ethical (and therefore participatory) terms’ (1994, p. 20). In this research, reflexivity was embedded in the research approach through ongoing journal writing plus an iterative and collaborative approach to data collection and analysis.
The immersive personal experiences of this research are detailed within the Prologue, Interludes, and Epilogue, providing a detailed account of the messy, contradictory space and transformative challenges in which this research developed and relationships were formed. Reflexivity needs to be examined at the personal level, and from these accounts, a lived experience of a reflexive approach is detailed, producing a kind of ‘personal and practical knowing’ which occurred through the research process. This reflexive practice was integral to be able to communicate respectfully, form relationships of trust, and accurately represent the perspectives of the Ntaria young adults.
3.3 Theoretical underpinning
The purpose of this section is to integrate the theoretical underpinnings of this study within the research approach. This is divided into three sections:
1) The first section is about the introduction of visual tools within Aboriginal communities. It draws from case studies (detailed within Appendix 1) covering the introduction of watercolour and acrylic painting, television and new media, pottery, and digital technologies. Key factors and implications are drawn from these precedents specifically as they relate to the introduction of digital drawing in Ntaria.
80 2) The second section relates to communication design education, and how to introduce the Ntaria senior students to digital drawing. The education approach draws on Indigenous pedagogies, namely the 8-ways framework (Yunkaporta, 2009) detailed in section 2.2.4. Presented here is a Ntaria Design Educational Framework initially developed to frame the content and delivery of the design workshops.
3) The third section details the theoretical underpinning as it relates to the assessment of the communication design education program. The evaluation of the program is underpinned by the capability approach (See section 2.2.2). Detailed here is how the capability approach was applied in the research, to first explore and identify the capabilities of the students, and then to assess the value of digital drawing and communication design education from the perspective of the Ntaria young adults.
3.3.1 Introducing visual tools in Ntaria
This section details the key factors and implications from the case studies described in Appendix 1. It describes how they have informed the research approach and the introduction of a digital drawing tool in Ntaria. Understanding how communities have adapted to working with introduced tools is a core component of the theoretical foundation of this study. This section focuses on the relationships and collaborations surrounding tools introduction, the teaching and learning of visual applications and practices, and any subsequent value generated through visual outcomes and subsequent economic development.
These insights are crucial to the development of design workshops to introduce digital drawing, ensuring the tool can fit within the current visual traditions of Ntaria and can be used to represent Western Arrarnta Country and culture. It is also hoped digital drawing can add to the rich visual practices in Ntaria. Design workshops may inspire students to continue the legacy of adapting introduced tools into uniquely Western Arrarnta interpretations of Country, culture, and contemporary life. Yet digital drawing is inherently digital—requiring the adaption of ritual and spiritual life into a technological space.
Key factors
This section discusses how key factors and implications from the cases mentioned in Appendix 1 have motivated and supported the introduction of a digital drawing tool in Ntaria. Figure 3.2
81 provides a visual summary. These factors are connected, interdependent, and reveal the importance of relationships, of collaboration, and mutual understanding and respect. To understand these factors is to understand why many initiatives (visual or otherwise) through non-Indigenous collaboration with Aboriginal communities became sites of agency, representation, and value.
Figure 3.2: Factors informing the introduction of visual tools within Indigenous contexts
These factors, garnered from the case studies, are described below.
Relationships: The vital importance of the relationships developed between Indigenous and non- Indigenous players within these case studies cannot be underestimated. These relationships, based on respect and collaboration, are mirrored through enduring friendships between Namatjira and Battarbee, Raggett and Bardon, Michaels and Kelly, Deger and Bangana, and The Hermannsburg Potters and Sharp. Additionally, many tools were introduced by non-Indigenous practitioners, working within the field in which they were introducing the common tools—who used and understood the practical advantages as well as the economic potential of the medium.
Teaching: Many of the case studies reveal those who have introduced tools have often engaged in long-term collaborative teaching. Importantly, they have promoted Aboriginal perspectives, culture, and outcomes within the existing discipline—seeing the potential for cultural development and supporting Aboriginal expressions. While Batterbee taught a Eurocentric form of landscape painting, and in contrast, Bardon only supported the use of traditional iconography, both were able to
82 promote distinct Aboriginal perspectives. Additionally, many of the non-Indigenous players were practitioners in their own right, sharing their skills of tool use and professional practice, while allowing for distinct Aboriginal expressions and inventions to emerge.
Cultural fit: The case studies cement the notion that new tools must be relevant to existing cultural production. The tools must enable a visual re-enactment of country and a connection to place. While cases such as the introduction of acrylic painting focused on the re-creation of traditional knowledge, new tools and mediums have also allowed a more traditional-future oriented practice. For example, the Hermannsburg Potters reinforced and regenerate their knowledge and connection to country through the making of pots, but the medium also allows for the incorporation of stories about contemporary community life and their lived experiences—seemingly merging the old and the new in a mutually enlivening way.
Visual development: The case studies reveal how the ‘difference’ of introduced tools has acted to regenerate cultural practices while enabled the development of visual styles and outcomes. Colour palettes have expanded from previous ochre pigments, enabling an expanded range of expression. The introduced tools have been purposely different, requiring new decisions to be made and different processes to be developed.
Commercial outcomes: While not all the case studies expressed above focused on generating commercial outcomes, those that produced works that could be sold, have seen the development of Aboriginal-led art centres in Aboriginal communities. In the case of watercolours and acrylic painting, there was relatively fast economic impact from Aboriginal artists’ work, providing motivation and income, but also importantly pride, recognition, and powerful mediums of expression. The vital sources of income, generated through collaboration, respect, and relationships between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples have created hugely important sites of economic participation and independence for many Aboriginal communities. Commercial outcomes have also led to long-term use of introduced tools, with multiple generations of watercolourists, acrylic painters, and potters incorporating emerging Aboriginal identities.
The key factors identified from the literature form a vital component to the strategy used to introduce digital drawing within Ntaria School. Yet introducing digital drawing to young adults in Ntaria raises new kinds of questions. Even as young adults become incorporated into a technological modernity, there remains a crucial local specificity in the ways that Western Arrarnta youth understand, create, and work with digital technology. Aboriginal communities use technology for their own purposes—
83 for remembering, imagining, connecting—in practices that will perhaps challenge conventional assumptions around communication design education, process and tool usage. To understand how digital drawing can have value within the life-worlds of Western Arrarnta youth, it is important to consider communication design education from a holistic framework—that learning design tools can enable Western Arrarnta youth to live lives they value, through creating, sharing knowledge, and producing commercial outcomes.
3.3.2 A Ntaria approach to communication design education
Following the review of the literature, questions remain as to how to approach the teaching and learning of digital drawing in Ntaria. This section discusses the development of design workshops in Ntaria. Drawing upon Indigenous perspectives of design (see section 2.3.1 for discussion) the design workshops sought to rethink Eurocentric approaches. While the design workshops were initially informed by a situated, local, and culture-centred approach to teaching and learning, the learning framework presented here was developed prior to the fieldwork. While our approach to teaching and learning developed through the design workshops (see section 5.4 for an account of how the teaching and learning developed), it is important to detail the initial framing, as it enabled a foundation to build relationships, and begin our learning journey.
Figure 3.3 details how the initial education framework for the design workshops focused on being engaged in the local, and relationships to Country. When applied to design workshops the imperatives of connection to Country acted as a support structure to help students learn and make sense of design within a Western Arrarnta context.
84
Figure 3.3: The initial Ntaria Design Education Framework developed prior to the fieldwork
Centring Western Arrarnta Country
Indigenous design perspectives position design, not as outcome oriented, but concerned with interaction ‘that results from building relations with knowledge … because knowledge lives in Country’ (Moran, Harrington & Sheehan, 2018, p. 75). Connecting learning to Country draws from a place- based educational approach, in which ‘the place provided the context for learning’ (Coleman, 2014, p. 5). From this perspective, Western Arrarnta Country became the basis of the educational approach and the students’ introduction to digital drawing within a contextualised learning environment. Learning activities were planned to be conducted outside of the classroom, with student directed place-based actions, allowing the participants to choose places of significance to them and share their knowledge of Country. Program content was also informed by Country as technical learning activities were situated to draw on local history, stories, and creative outcomes. The educational program was planned to draw from the local context of Ntaria, situating knowledge generation as embedded within Aboriginal relations to Country.
85 For Western Arrarnta people, knowledge is shared through trust and caring, relatedness or looking after another or a place (Austin-Broos, 2009). This is a pattern of relation with, and responsibility for, looking after Country. Connection to Country speaks to cultural knowledge, participation in ritual and ceremony, and obligations of interconnected relationships (Hall, 2016). It is an essential part of the identity of the students. Aboriginal Professor Bob Morgan describes this relationship:
For me, country is fundamentally about community, culture and identity. Country serves to link us to our past and provides a space within which family and community can be acknowledged and celebrated. Country is more than issues of land and geography; it is about spirituality and identity, knowing who we are and who were are connected to; and it helps us understand how all living things are connected. The symbiotic relationship Indigenous people have with country and how it defines our identity are as old and profound as the land itself. (Morgan, 2008, p. 202)
Centring Western Arrarnta Country within the framework positioned the content and delivery to draw from the local, including history, community, and identity embedded within the physical, spiritual, and social landscape. The relations of Country also work to mediate the surrounding facets of the framework, as all those engaged with the program can connect through a relational understanding—to each other, and to Country.
A relationally responsive framework
Embedded within the learning framework is a relational understanding between the student, the wider community, the teacher, and design education. These connections and relationships are visualised in Figure 3.3. The framework acknowledges the importance of relationships while enabling a culturally responsive program delivery. Each component, as relates to the introduction of digital drawing, is unpacked below.
The design educator: Acknowledged within the case studies discussed in Appendix 1, long-term collaborative teaching and the promotion of Aboriginal perspectives is imperative. Also highlighted, as a key factor in the introduction of visual tools within Aboriginal community contexts, was the experience of educators within professional practice. Here, it was important to highlight my existing skills and knowledge as a design educator, not just of the tools and technologies being introduced, but the wider communication design industry and visual and commercial development—to tie the educator’s past experiences in the industry to the development and potential economic participation of students. It was also crucial to stress the importance of incorporating distinct Aboriginal
86 expressions and perspectives within the existing discipline. This meant the program prioritised the process and outcomes of the students. Learning activities were not planned to direct students on what steps to take, or what communication design outcomes to make. Design learning focused on a particular digital skill to learn, or an activity to complete. The framework situates the design educator as a facilitator both in and out of the classroom, remaining responsive and reflexive to student aspirations, culture, and relational responsibilities. The use of culturally responsive teaching practices is well grounded within the Indigenous education literature (see section 2.2.4). Responsive practices are applied within the framework as design educators/teachers must sit with, learn from, and teach on Country. It requires ongoing reflexivity and cultural awareness.
Design education: As acknowledged in key factors from Appendix 1, the introduction of digital drawing, as previously mentioned, needed to be relevant to existing cultural production, to merge the old and the new in a mutually enlivening way. The design workshops were positioned to allow for connection with Country on various levels, through the focus on physically being and ‘designing’ on Country, to drawing influence from the physical landscape, to telling stories of Country, both traditional and new. As Country is a living entity, the learning activities were designed to both engage with the traditions of visual expressions of the past, but also to enable students to imagine something new. The aim of the design workshops was to offer experimental ways to connect with and share Western Arrarnta knowledge. Introducing digital drawing sought to expand different ways and means of expression, while different tools could enable the development of alternative and experimental styles and outcomes. By framing learning activities around the creation of design- based outcomes, such as printed materials, posters, and t-shirts, the students could reimagine these spaces as new sites of expression. These learning activities were designed so students would need to make new decisions around drawing applications, applying digital skills to mediums outside current visual expressions in Ntaria. The activities were also designed to allow for new processes to be developed in order to learn digital drawing and to complete the design activities.
The students: Bringing the framework to the students’ learning experience, it was positioned to empower students by drawing on local knowledge and culture as a key resource. The students’ links to Country could be fostered through their digital depictions of place. Their position within the framework was to enable their aspirations, voices, and imaginings to continuously inform the project and the ongoing iterative nature of the project delivery. As their own perceptions and imagining of design grew through the program, the framework was initially and purposefully designed to remain adaptable to their developing practice and skills. The students can thus utilise the design workshop
87 for their own purposes and in practice, that will perhaps challenge conventional assumptions around communication design education, process, and outcome. The program was established in a way that it could be guided by student interests and aspirations, by their own imaginings of design and potential commercial outcomes.
Community: The framework also acknowledged working in partnership with community, including Ntaria School, to develop meaningful curricula and relevant outcomes that would meet the specific learning needs and aspirations of the students, school, and wider community. The Ntaria community is also positioned here to mitigate relations between students, teachers, and design, through support, advice, guidance, approvals, sharing stories, and as gatekeepers of local knowledge.
The initial Ntaria design education framework acted as a scaffold to initiate, not just the teaching of digital drawing, but worked to acknowledge the centrality of relationships and their inherent links to Country.
Embedding 8-ways in the Ntaria design workshops
The 8-ways framework underpinned the approach to introduce digital drawing in Ntaria. How it has been applied in Ntaria draws from other educational programs that have utilised 8-ways within a communication design context (see section 2.3.1). Edwards-Vandenhoek utilised 8-ways to scaffold learning experiences around a pre-defined six-phase design process. Yet in Ntaria, the design workshops were positioned to be responsive to student perceptions of design, including the design process.
As the research question is framed around Western Arrarnta perceptions of design, including the design process, it was imperative to build learning around Ntaria understandings. Therefore, integrating 8-ways within the Ntaria design workshops was focused on ‘allowing quality content to emerge through Aboriginal pedagogy and intercultural collaboration’ (Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011, p.151). By centring a local cultural approach, the key pedagogies of 8-ways could frame learning approaches, while allowing the students to imagine and develop their own design process. How the 8-ways framework was applied within the development and delivery of the design workshops in Ntaria is visualised in Figure 3.4, and further explored below.
88
Figure 3.4: The Ntaria Design Education Framework situated within the 8-ways approach
Centring Western Arrarnta Country within the 8-ways pedagogical framework enabled learning to continue to return to the local, while remaining embedded within Aboriginal ways of learning. The Ntaria Design Education Framework scaffolded learning activities and their delivery while reinforcing the strong connection between land, knowledge, and learning. While the framework guided relationship building, the learning activities drew on key pedagogies of 8-ways. In this fashion, the local, and relationships between Country, community, students, teachers, and design could fit within Aboriginal pedagogical approaches. How each of the key 8-ways pedagogies were aligned to the Ntaria Design Education Framework is detailed below.
Community links: Working in partnerships with Ntaria School and the wider Ntaria community was an important approach to the introduction of digital drawing within Ntaria School. Informed by these relations, the key pedagogy of community links was used to support the initial project introduction and development. The program approach was embedded with the Ntaria School senior syllabus, structured as an Employment Pathway Program (EPP) within the Business and Enterprise Unit.
89 According to Aboriginal pedagogy, learning is ‘group-oriented, localised and connected to real-life purposes and contexts’ (Christie, 1986). Therefore, learning activities were connected to local culture and place, while teaching processes were based on community life and values. Learning activities were framed so students could share their knowledge of country, their connection with community, and also their contemporary identities through learning digital drawing. Consultation with the school, community and students before the workshop program began also enabled community links to form. Community, particularly family and artists working at the Hermannsburg Potters, were invited into the classroom in an ongoing and open fashion, to consult on program themes and to view the work produced by the students.
Story sharing: Fundamental to both 8-ways and the overarching program approach is the key pedagogy of story sharing. The narrative based way of learning is also the way Indigenous people manage their dynamic but eternal connection to Country (Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011, p. 206). Narrative-driven learning was applied within the design workshops through exploring and documenting the students’ personalised stories linked to their digital design outcomes. Design briefs asked students to ‘tell a story’ in the form of a design outcome, such as poster or t-shirt design. In this way, students could tell stories, orally and/or visually, but also utilise narrative methods to tell stories of contemporary life, of their dreams and aspirations. Through enabling ongoing community consultation, community members were also welcome to come to the classroom, to engage and share family and culture stories, and to assist in developing deeper spiritual and cultural layers to the classroom activities.
Learning maps: Focusing on the design educator, and delivering 8-ways, learning maps were used to visualise learning processes as they related to key digital drawing skills on the iPad. Here, diagrams and visualisations were used to map out processes explicitly for the learner (Yunkaporta, n.d., p. 11). ‘In optimal Aboriginal pedagogy, the teacher and learner create a concrete, holistic image of the tasks to be performed which serves as a reference point for the learner’ (Hughes & More 1997, cited in Yunkaporta n.d., p. 11). This was achieved by creating posters of digital drawing processes on the iPad and displaying them within the classroom (see Figure 3.5). Creating poster ‘maps’ visualised different pathways for using digital drawing tools, and opportunities present within the digital medium.
90
Figure 3.5: An example of learning maps displayed in the classroom. Posters visually explained key pathways and opportunities within digital drawing processes on the iPad
Non-verbal cues: Aboriginal pedagogy is kinaesthetic, hands-on learning with a strong emphasis on body language and silence. As Wheaton (cited in Yunkaporta n.d., p. 12) argues, however, non-verbal pedagogy ‘is more than just the idea of reduced language [..], ‘[A]boriginal learners test knowledge non-verbally through experience, introspection and practice, thereby becoming critical thinkers who can judge the validity of new knowledge independently’. This was embedded within the learning approach, by allowing students time to play and experiment with the digital medium without direction. This was not scheduled ‘play time’ but the teaching approach allowed for students to take time away from learning activities when required. This was designed to allow for introspection, particularly for students experimenting with content and visuals for their digital drawings, to create a space where students could feel safe and comfortable. Additionally, the teaching of digital drawing was based on hands-on learning, which each student having their own iPad in each design workshop.
Deconstruct/reconstruct: Concentrating on student learning, the key pedagogy of deconstruct- reconstruct focuses on watching first, then doing. This situates learning from a holistic orientation, where the initial focus in on the whole, rather than the parts; ‘seeing an overall meaning, purpose and structure first and then breaking it down into manageable chunks’ (Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011, p. 208). This was applied within the learning framework through modelling and scaffolding learning by showing the techniques first, letting the students watch, before completing independently. Deconstruct/reconstruct was particularly suited to drawing and colouring techniques on the iPad, as the use of layers can be turned on and off, showing the ‘whole’ drawing, and then breaking it down
91 to see each layer, and building them up to complete a digital drawing. This approach also enables students to watch the design educator demonstrate tasks, but also their peers. As some students may master techniques before others; others, in turn, could watch their peers’ complete tasks before attempting it themselves.
Non-linear practices: According to Indigenous pedagogy learning is not sequential but a continuous relational endeavour, through making connections with existing knowledge. Key skills were introduced to students at the start of the design workshops, and repeated at the beginning of the introduction of core tasks. Students were free to complete tasks multiple times, and to return to the same themes. Importantly, they were free to explore their own process and were not scaffolded into following a pre-defined set of steps to complete work.
Land-links: ‘Aboriginal pedagogies are intensely ecological, place-based’ and ‘drawn from the living landscape within a framework of profound ancestral and personal relationships with place’ (Marker, 2006, cited in Yunkaporta n.d., p. 12). Learning digital drawing within this key pedagogy was about linking content to local land and place, and contextualising learning activities. Land-links was applied within the design workshops through situating learning outside the classroom. This component aligns closely with the local-culture approach employed within the Ntaria Design Education Framework and the necessary links with Western Arrarnta Country.
Symbols and images: This pedagogy, highly aligned with the teaching, learning, and content of communication design, uses images and metaphors to understand concepts and content. The teaching of digital drawing drew on the visual symbols embedded within the Adobe Draw app to scaffold students learning around the iPad, and the specific tools and applications within the drawing apps. These symbols enabled drawing metaphors to be aligned with core features within the digital medium. Images were used to show students examples of design outcomes, particularly examples of Aboriginal communication design and potential uses for their design knowledge. Western Arrarnta knowledge is also coded in symbols, signs, and images, and through the use of these symbols, students used their knowledge as a tool for learning and sharing.
Summary
The 8-ways framework enabled Aboriginal perspectives to be prioritised in the introduction and teaching of digital drawing to the Ntaria students. The design workshops drew on local content and relations to Country to develop meaningful content and relevant outcomes that would meet the
92 aspirations of the students and their learning needs, and overarching curriculum objects of the school. Learning activities were developed so students could assert and reinforce their cultural identities, and express and share stories through varied digital drawing activities and applications. The design workshops were developed to engage in two-way action oriented learning activities with the Ntaria students. The iterative, collaborative program that then developed through the doing of the research, presented a re-imagining of the initial approach discussed here. The way in which we engaged in teaching and learning design together is presented in section 5.4.
3.3.3 Assessing value through capabilities
As this research seeks to explore the value afforded through digital drawing and design education, the focus here is understanding how design can contribute to futures that the young adults involved in this study value. This section draws on the capability approach (introduced in section 2.4.4) as an evaluative tool within this research, to assess the value of this research according to the dimensions the participants have identified. It describes how the capability approach can be applied as an evaluative tool.
Applying capabilities within the context of this research
The capability approach is a holistic development theory, that positions human development in relation to expanding peoples’ ability to live lives they value (Sen, 1999). The approach promotes Indigenous voices and perspectives of wellbeing by establishing the space for Indigenous peoples to define their own capabilities. Identifying the capabilities of the Ntaria students allows for understanding the value of communication design education from the participants perspectives. Within this research, the capability approach serves as an evaluative tool, as the identified capabilities act to inform what value design brings in Ntaria. The purpose of this section is to address how to identify capabilities and apply them as an evaluative tool within the research.
Alkire (2007), provoked by the ambiguity of identifying capabilities, offers direction on selection methods. She explains that ‘The capability approach is a coherent framework that enables researchers to utilise diverse approaches to analyse wellbeing in a concerted and conceptually coherent fashion’ (2007, p. 2). She elaborates on the question of how to identify and explain selection, questioning, ‘how should researchers decide “what matters”?’ (Alkire, 2007, p.1). The answer is contextually specific, participatory and multi-dimensional:
93 Different applications of capability approach can – and no doubt will – be utilised, depending on the place and situation, the level of analysis, the information available, and the decisions involved. Methods will be plural. (Alkire, 2007, p. 2)
Alkire argues that while the selection of capabilities seems complex, in practical applications, the methods of identifying capabilities are surprisingly straightforward. She states that most researchers draw implicitly on five selection methods, either alone or in combination. A summary of these methods, their characteristics and weaknesses are provided in Table 3.1:
Method Characteristics Weaknesses
Existing data Use existing data related to the field of study Does not raise value issues so should only be used in conjunction with another method
Normative Make assumptions regarding what people Can be inaccurate or ideology assumptions should value based on researcher views or based drawing on social theory, religion, etc.
Public consensus Agreement through public consensus such as Can hide conflict, be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights inflexible and may not involve all parties
Ongoing Generate the set of dimensions directly Can be hijacked by dominant deliberative through an ongoing deliberate process in groups or superficial if participation which the participants article the dimensions lacking trust that matter to them
Empirical Analyse empirical evidence regarding May not include the relevant evidence people’s values population, while people are treated as objects of study
Table 3.1: Methods for identifying capabilities
The capability approach is applied within this research because of the emphasis on identifying and prioritising the freedoms people value. When we consider identifying these capabilities, the
94 methods need to be transparent, and of ongoing participation and iteration. As Sen clarifies, the process needs to give attention to people’s present values, and how these may change over time. He explains:
Pure theory cannot ‘freeze’ a list of capabilities for all societies for all time to come, irrespective of what the citizens come to understand and value. That would not only be a denial of the reach of democracy, but also a misunderstanding of what pure theory can do….’ (Sen, 2004, p. 78). And relatedly: ‘To insist on a fixed forever list of capabilities would deny the possibility of progress in social understanding. (Sen, 2004, p. 80)
Therefore, the method that aligns with identifying the capabilities of the Ntaria young adults, and the overarching conceptual framework, is that of ongoing deliberate participation. The aim of this approach is to single out people’s actual values and priorities through group discussions and participatory analysis (Alkire, 2007). Here value judgments are made and revised directly by the Ntaria participants. Alkire’s methods of identifying capabilities have informed the research approach by situating an ongoing iterative approach to understanding and identifying the capabilities of the participants. The specific investigation techniques are discussed in section 3.4.
3.4 Data collection techniques
This section describes the data gathering activities and techniques employed in this study. The research procedures were centred on a desire to allow the students to participate in ways that were comfortable to them. The activities and methods are broken down into three stages. (For a detailed outline of the activities, data collection, and data analysis, see Figure 1.7 (section 1.5, Chapter 1.) The stages were designed to allow for an ongoing process of understanding, reflection, and collaboration. Each stage of the research influenced the direction of the following stage, allowing the voices of participants to be heard across each step of the research journey.
3.4.1 Stage 1: Exploring capabilities
The aim of Stage 1 of the research was to explore the aspirations and freedoms students valued. These understandings would then be used to align the design workshops to the kind of lives the students valued, or the capabilities possible from engaging in, and doing design in Ntaria. This stage sought to engage in collaborative research practices, to gather the necessary data and insights to
95 inform the development of the design workshops, and ensure the program aligned to the participants’ aspirations, skill levels, and capabilities.
The data gathering sessions for Stage 1 were held in September 2016 and March 2017. These sessions also functioned to gather preliminary information regarding students’ knowledge of design, their current use of digital technology, and their desire to use it within a classroom and design context. While observing students’ skill levels, group interviews were conducted to understand their broader capabilities and how design could fit within these desired freedoms. These data gathering activities within Stage 1 were based around introducing the project to the students, forming relations, becoming known, and starting a collaborative research journey.
Introductory group interview
Within Stage 1, an initial semi-structured group interview (Wengraf, 2001) was conducted with senior students from Ntaria School. These early interviews sought to gather insights from participants through thoughtful prompts and examining issues in conversation as per the model of ‘directed storytelling’ (Martin & Hanington, 2012).
The aim of the interview was twofold. Firstly, it sought to assess student interest in the project, investigate their current visual practices and if students were already engaging with digital technologies. This initial data were used to assess the skill level of students before Stage 2 of the research and to assist in the development of the design workshops. The introductory interview also aligned with AIATSIS ethical research guidelines (particularly Principles 6, 7, and 8) and Indigenous methodologies, ensuring that at every stage of the research the opportunity to ensure Indigenous people have input into the process is evident (AIATSIS, 2019). Insights garnered from the interview influenced the content of the workshops in Stage 2, being able to develop a tailored program specific to Ntaria around skills the students wanted to learn and to focus on creative outcomes around student interests.
The second aim of the introductory group interview was to explore student capabilities: to ascertain what was important to the students and what kinds of lives they wanted to lead. The hope was that in understanding the students’ future aspirations, the design program could be tailored to assist in achieving these freedoms.
96 Participant observations
During the initial visits to Ntaria School within Stage 1, participant observations (DeWalt & DeWalt, 2002) were undertaken to observe students in their classroom lessons. These observations focused on students’ use and competence of different technologies (iPads, computers, smart phones, etc.) and any visual outcomes (such as painting, drawing, etc.) produced by students to assess their competencies and styles before introducing a digital medium. It was important to establish what kind of drawing and visual expressions participants made before their design workshop experience.
There are additional outcomes from participant observations, particularly when working with Indigenous communities (Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte, 1999). They describe associated beneficial activities resulting from participant observations. These include:
• helping the researcher get the feel for how things are organised and prioritised, how students and teachers interrelate, and what the cultural parameters are;
• helping the researcher become known to the participants, thereby easing facilitation of the research process; and
• providing the researcher with a source of questions to be addressed with participants during semi- structured interviews.
Data were collected during the lesson observations in the form of field notes. These were then compared and cross-referenced with data from semi-structured group interviews, and compared to observations at the end of the design workshops (Stage 2) to demonstrate student learning of vector graphics and digital drawing, as well as give context to their resulting design practices and outcomes.
3.4.2 Stage 2: Introducing digital drawing
Stage 2 focuses on introducing the senior students at Ntaria School to digital drawing through design workshops. It aligns to the research question seeking to understand how Western Arrarnta young adults imagine design and make meaning through communication design education. Following insights garnered in Stage 1, the students’ aspirations, interests, and ideas influenced the content of Stage 2. Working in consultation with Ntaria School staff, an initial six-week program was developed to run in Term 2, 2017 from April to May. Originally, the workshops were designed to run 12 classes
97 over six weeks. The aim was to introduce digital drawing to 20 students, aged 14-18 in the senior class at Ntaria School and to explore the students’ resulting perceptions of the design process, principles, communication design education, and value.
Design workshops
Generally, design workshops (Martin & Hanington, 2012) consist of participatory sessions, focused on design exercises and centred on an assigned problem or design brief, planned and orchestrated by a design facilitator. Hands-on training and visual expressions are then completed by participants and shared with the group. These creative expressions may be in the form of drawings, paintings, photographs, etc. Yet the Ntaria approach to learning digital drawing was based on connections to country, and as such, the teaching and learning was approached in more organic ways that fitted with the realities of community life and the students’ imaginings of design. Due to the uncertainty of community life and important cultural events, the project was moulded to fit within its context and the circumstances at Ntaria. Instead of a six-week program, the workshops were delivered over three blocks, with a total of 12 months of engagement. This extended time frame was critical to give the students the space, freedom, and time—to explore, learn, collaborate, and share their knowledge. Although the initial time frames were adapted due to conditions in the field, the original planned methods remained relatively unchanged—largely due to the flexibility inherent in their applications.
Students were introduced to working with vector graphics predominantly on iPads, utilising the Adobe range of tablet apps. Learning activities began by having students draw with a pencil/marker on paper and then having students utilise a variety of ways to transfer these images to a digital interface. Apple pencils were also used as a drawing tool on the iPads. Initially the workshops focused on simple tasks and hands-on training; and throughout the term, the design exercises became more complex and self-directed, as students learn new skills, experimented with the technology, and began to explore new avenues for their newfound digital skills.
The workshops were participatory and explorative, and usually focused on completing a design task while ensuring work was embedded within local knowledge and storytelling practices. This was achieved by taking students out of the classroom, letting them decide on the destination, and asking questions about specific places or elements within the landscape, such as waterholes and bushfoods. This allowed the students to engage in storytelling practices around specific places, plants, and animals and share knowledge embedded within the telling of stories. These stories in turn directed
98 students’ digital drawing outcomes, figuratively drawing from the landscape and its knowledge. Workshop sessions often happened outdoors, to gather materials such as local plants, and to photographically capture colour palettes from the landscape. Priority was given to connecting to, and learning from, Western Arrarnta Country.
Forms of data collected during the design workshops included:
1. Documentation of digital drawings (process work, paper sketches, photographs) 2. Photographs of participants during design workshops 3. Digital files of digital drawing (digital-based drawing) 4. Printed outcomes of digital expressions 5. Participant observations 6. Written reflections.
Collecting and telling stories
Throughout the course of Stage 2, three semi-structured group interviews (Wengraf, 2001) were planned with senior students from Ntaria School, to take place at the beginning, middle and end of the six-week program. However, as this plan was not realised, due to the project slowing down to fit within community life, the interviews became more reactive and occurred over five interviews, at times when the students felt comfortable. This approach allowed them to reveal themselves slowly, unencumbered by formal meetings, in comfortable spaces, at times and with people chosen within the context of Western Arrarnta relatedness or cultural preference. It was during these moments that the students’ experiences, stories and narratives used in this study emerged, and this space of active listening enabled them to reflect on their experiences and perceptions of design, digital drawing, and the value of their communication design education.
The stories behind the students’ designs became narratives that when explained, interpret meaning in their work: what it is, why it is important, and what it tells us about life as a young person in Ntaria. These stories are crucial to give their digital drawings meaning and locate it within the context of their lives. These narratives also situate the Western Arrarnta designers in this study as young adults with agency: they speak for themselves and are not spoken for.
Teresa Phelps argues that ‘storytelling, speaking about one’s life, manifests a capability that is an essential part of a broader and richer sense of what it means to be human and what it means to be just’
99 (2006 p. 106). Shifting interviews to focus on telling stories, worked as Karen Martin describes (2008) as a ‘culturally relevant and respectful set of processes for sharing experiences, meaning making and learning’ (p. 95). Prompting students to tell the story of their digital drawing also enabled a space for them to start to feel comfortable telling stories of their lived experiences, aspirations, thoughts, and perceptions of design. It also articulates how the ‘story sharing’ aspect of Yunkaporta’s 8-ways framework was actively employed in the project, not just as an educational approach, but also through the projects methods.
3.4.3 Stage 3: Assessing learning and impact
Following completion of the design workshops, the focus of Stage 3 was to understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education in Ntaria, and how these might relate to the capabilities identified by the Ntaria young adults. The data gathering techniques included:
(1) Individual interviews: in the form of conversations or dialogue, unfolding in an unstructured manner. (2) Card sorting activities: these enabled the students to detail what they had learnt throughout the program and what their design process was. (3) Evaluative worksheet: a ‘self-reflection survey’ for students to visually respond to questions around their perceptions of design, rather than requiring verbal or written responses. This was developed due to the complexities of language barriers and enabled a different kind of data to be collected, enabling a comfortable space for student participation.
Each technique is discussed in more detail below.
Conversations
As discussed in Stage 2, conversations with students focused on telling stories—detailing the meaning behind their digital drawings and their significance to Country, culture or contemporary life. In Stage 3, students were prompted to continue to tell these stories, but to move beyond their design outcomes to think about how designing made them feel, what they learnt, and the value of the design workshops for them. Broader concepts of what students valued also emerged during these dialogues, as they were now more comfortable in talking and sharing with the researcher. Things important to them, their aspirations, and how design related to these were expressed by the students. To this end, these conversations were also a way of understanding the capabilities of the
100 students, and how design related to living lives students valued. From these conversations, capability dimensions and the value of the design program were further explored through collective analysis, described in more detail in section 3.5.
Card sorting: Design skills
Visual aids helped assess student learning throughout the design workshops. This activity is referred to as ‘card sorting’ in the design literature (Martin & Hanington, 2012). Cards were made that contained common words used in the design workshops and design activities—detailing different digital or drawing processes we covered in class (see Figure 3.6). Some words were specific to the iPad and to the Adobe Draw program (blue cards) some words were specific to drawing on the laptop and Adobe Illustrator (orange cards). The cards also contained common Western Arrarnta expressions and repetitive words used by students when talking about their work in class. The purpose of this card sorting was to gauge what techniques, skills, design vocabulary, and technological processes the students had learnt through the design workshops, how far their skill level had progressed, and to make visible their own learning. drawing a line drawing a circle changing the brush changing the colour
drawing with your erasing creating a ‘shape’ taking a photo finger drawing with the auto-colouring in a changing the colour drawing a dot Apple™ pencil shape of a shape
drawing a smooth tracing shapes creating a layer moving layers line copying shapes changing the size of changing the changing the opacity (multiplying) shapes position of shapes changing the size of making a ‘good’ making a drawing shapes on the brush design ‘detailed’ design the laptop drawing on the drawing lines on the saving your designs sending a design to laptop with the laptop on the laptop the laptop Wacom™ pencil drawing with vectors changing colours on changing brushes on
101 the laptop the laptop
Figure 3.6: List of words used in card sorting activity. The blue cards refer to learning tasks on the iPad while the orange cards refer to learning tasks on the laptop
For this activity, cards were laid out on a table within the classroom and individual students were asked to sort the cards into things they found easy or hard to do, or didn’t know how to do.
Card sorting: Design process
Card sorting activities were further used to assess other aspects of student learning. In this case, detailing the steps students took in creating a design. The aim of this activity was to understand the students’ design processes and their perceptions of what they were doing when they were ‘designing.’ Again students were provided with cards printed with common words from learning activities, but also words the students had expressed within classroom activities and interviews. The students were asked to use the cards that made sense to them and sort them from what they did at the beginning, to the completion of their design process. Students could only select certain cards/words/phrases that described their own process. Figure 3.7 shows the cards used for the activity. Understanding the students’ process and learning outcomes was complemented by other visual means, where students were asked to visually respond to questions in a self-reflection survey. This acted to complement the card-sorting activities and reveal further insights into students’ perceptions of their design process.
look for design think about my think of an idea think of a story inspiration culture think about Ntaria look at pictures on draw some ideas on think of ideas while the internet paper drawing play around on the look at what other I already know what draw my design on iPad people are drawing I want to design paper take a photo of my trace my design on colour my design on draw on the iPad design with the iPad the iPad paper colour my design on use the pencil to make some work on my the iPad draw on the iPad shapes on the iPad design more change the make the re-do some bits to send the design to
102 colours drawing neater on make them better the laptop the iPad ask my friends what ask my teacher what ask my family what think about my they think of my they think of my they think of my design and the story design design design it tells spend more time and send my design to make my design finish my design sell my design the printers better
show my friends and make money from tell the story of my wear my designs family what I have selling my design design made
make a new erase it and start it’s too hard – I give leave it for a bit and layer and do some again up work on it later more work
try drawing it a try lots of ideas on try lots of ideas on feel shame about my couple of ways on paper the iPad design the iPad finish my design on make another design feel happy with my go outside to get paper work ideas
Figure 3.7: List of words used in card sorting activity in relation to design process
Self-reflection survey
A worksheet was developed to elicit further data on the students’ perceptions of design, following the design workshops. The worksheet included a variety of questions requiring visual responses and focused on garnering information on their perceptions of design, their design process and what value design workshops had. The worksheets also elicited information about broader values and future aspirations. These worksheets supported the stories and information students had shared in interviews and card sorting activities, giving a holistic understanding, as combining verbal and visual data worked to provide a more detailed and rich understanding of student learning and their perceptions of design and the design process. Worksheet questions were grouped into the following categories:
103 1. Perceptions of design 2. Design stories 3. The design process 4. Ntaria capabilities.
Examples of questions within the self-reflection worksheets included:
1. What does design mean to you? 2. Describe or draw what things you would like to design 3. What stories do you tell with design? 4. Draw your design process from start to finish 5. How does designing things make you feel? 6. What do you love about living in Ntaria?
The self-reflection survey was designed to further understand the differences in worldviews and priorities students brought to the project. In participatory action research projects, the aim is to ‘open horizons of discussion, to create spaces for collective reflection in which new descriptions and analyses of important situations may be developed as the basis for new action’ (Greenwood & Levin, 1998, p. 86). The creation of a collective space for reflection began with the initial discussions in Stage 1 and developed through each stage of the research. Data gathering became sequential, whereby each stage informed the choice for the next one. This approach subsequently informed how the data were analysed, further reinforcing our collaborative research journey.
3.5 Data analysis approach
This section explains how the data analysis was approached. Data analysis processes are consistent with thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2013) in which the process involves applying codes to a set of data drawn in this case from observations, interviews, digital drawings, card sorting activities and self-reflection surveys. Sorting these codes is then applied to identify patterns, themes, and common sequences (Clarke & Braun, 2013). Thematic analysis is not tied to a particular epistemological or theoretical perspective, making it a flexible method and one that fits within the overarching methodological approach.
Three rounds of analysis were used to explore and assess: (1) the students’ digital drawings, (2) perceptions of design education, and (3) the value of digital drawing and communication design
104 education. Thematic analysis allowed patterns to be identified across visual (analogue drawings, digital drawings and card sort documentation), oral (interviews) and textual data (self-reflection survey), allowing for a holistic integration of the students’ digital drawings as design outcomes, sources of knowledge, and records of their learning.
The students were involved in different ways in each stage of the data interpretation, with each round being described in more detail below. This form of collaboration within analysis is not uncommon in qualitative research or with research with differing language and cross-cultural understandings, as ‘the interviewer is understood to work with the respondent in flexible collaboration to identify and interpret the relevant meanings that are used to make sense of the topic’ (Reid et al., 2005, p. 22). Through their involvement, the students were able to clarify meaning and unpack any iconographic symbolism, significant places used in their designs or referred to in their interviews. This process also enabled the analysis to reflect what was important to know, to get the story ‘right’, according to them. The three rounds of analysis and associated data, activities and themes are detailed in Figure 1.7 (see section 1.5, Chapter 1).
3.5.1 Round 1: Initial coding
Once a student had finished a digital drawing within the design workshops, they shared its story. These were recorded with the student sitting with their design. After the interview, they were transcribed, and together explored. Here, the students were able to clarify what they had said, add extra details, or remove anything they were not comfortable with. This first round of analysis was important to ensure the students were comfortable with their stories, designs, and themes emerging. From this first level of analysis, based primarily on the students’ visual data and our resulting conversations, but also taking into account data collected through the design workshops (card sorting activities and self-reflection survey), an initial coding revealed several recurring themes and ideas.
3.5.2 Round 2: Group workshop
A group analysis workshop was developed to follow the design workshop program to give further direction to the initial coding work based on the students’ designs and stories. This analysis workshop utilised both group discussion and card sorting activities to identify key concepts, ideas and meanings, but also the importance and relevance of the initial thematic groupings. This was an
105 important way to ensure themes were not just identified by one non-Indigenous person. Similar to the card sorting methods used within data collection, cards were made as visual prompts to support group data analysis. Common words and phrases garnered from observations and interviews were written on the cards, and loosely structured into four key areas: cultural knowledge, tool use, visual elements, and identity and wellbeing. The images below, show the visual cards used within this workshop.
Figure 3.8: Cards used in group analysis workshop telling old stories in sharing my connection to telling stories sharing culture a new way country sharing my sharing my families stories passing on our history drawing things I like dreaming communicating and knowledge making a cool designing something I want playing around on the copying brands that I design to wear iPad like drawing something drawing something different remembering stories telling stories to
106 new by drawing them younger kids the colours are the colours tell a story the colours represent where I place things important something is important where I place things the way I have drawn it is drawing on the iPad is drawing on the iPad tell a story important a new style is the same as normal drawing
I picked colours I I picked the colours because the shapes tell a story the shapes are like that’s the way my family important does it
I used traditional I draw shapes I like I drew new shapes that I played around with shapes from my look cool new shapes culture
I draw differently on I draw the same on the iPad making it look neat is drawing on the iPad the iPad important is neater colouring on the the iPad is important colouring on the iPad It’s hard to get it to iPad is neater is neater look neat on the iPad
I can draw I can’t get it to look the way drawing on the iPad is drawing on the iPad differently with the I want on the iPad messy takes lots of practice iPad
I feel good telling I feel good sharing my I like designing new I like sharing Ntaria stories about my families stories stuff stories culture
I feel proud when I feel proud of what I have With design I can tell I can tell whatever people buy my designed my cultural stories stories I want with design work design designing makes me learning design makes me designing makes me I feel in control when feel good feel good proud of where I come I am designing from
When I design I feel When I tell storiesI feel I want to keep I like learning new happy happy designing and telling things my stories
Figure 3.9: List of words used in card sorting activity during data analysis workshop. Different colours (see Figure 3.8) were used to group cards into loose categories, such as tool use, visual elements, identity, and cultural understandings. These coloured categories had no bearing on the analysis, all cards were mixed together and students were not aware of the loose groupings.
107 Students were asked to sort the cards into ‘what design means to you’ as well as things ‘that were important to know about their design work’ and things they thought were ‘not important.’ This way, the importance of design was understood from their perspectives and what they perceived as its value. The workshop was important to communicating meaning and understanding in a cross- cultural space (Pringle et al., 2011, p. 21). This workshop gave important direction to the codes and themes to focus on. The workshop was also a key moment of engagement, as it situated the students as active participants, and gave them the space to make connections and communicate new meanings from work they had not previously shared.
3.5.3 Round 3: Research analysis & ongoing loop
Following Rounds 1 and 2, the themes and analysis that emerged from group activities were used as an analytical frame to further explore the students’ drawings, stories, and imaginings of design. This involved summarising the main themes and reflecting on them in relation to the research question and the context of the study. Interview transcripts were re-read and visual data look at as a whole, with the themes in mind. During this phrase, literature was also used to help widen and deepen understandings of the data. Care was taken here for the literature to ‘illuminate’ the data. While this was a researcher-led process, the students provided feedback on the conclusions drawn as the process unfolded. This was mainly done in an informal way, a ‘checking in’ and asking questions of students on how they saw things being connected, and if they were happy with where their work sat within the core themes.
3.6 Ethical considerations
Ethical responsibilities are fundamental to any researcher, particularly when conducting research with Indigenous people. Indigenous research approaches (see section 3.2.1) acknowledge careful consideration of research ethics required for research with Indigenous people and emphasise the importance of researcher responsibility in relation to values, knowledges and representations. Rose (2004) argues ethics are a ‘way of living … in vulnerability and openness to others’ rather than a rigid system (Rose, 2004, p. 8). She highlights ethics should be approached as a responsibility, rather than from a place of guilt, that ethics ‘unfold within relationships of responsibility’ (Rose, 2004, p. 13).
In Australia, research involving Indigenous people requires consideration of six principles – reciprocity, respect, equality, responsibility, survival and protection, and spirit and integrity
108 (NHMRC, 2018). Principals such as these, and Indigenous research ethics more broadly, have emerged from concerns by an increasing number of academics involved in Indigenous research. The principle importance of researchers following ethical behaviour is reflected in the work of Karen Martin:
Many of the decisions researchers will face are moral ones, rather than epistemological ones, so ethical behaviour needs to occur throughout the research program. It’s about gaining trust and maintaining integrity. To be truly ethical requires the researcher to recognise and respond to the duality of the research contexts and act in culturally safe ways. It expects the researcher to observe codes of ethical behaviour of his/her own professional and personal worlds, and also of the world in which the research is conducted. (Martin & Mirraboopa, 2003, p.6)
It becomes clear researchers need to do more than just follow ethical principles and become collaborators in projects and processes that respect Indigenous aspirations and privilege Indigenous voices. This research therefore presents an opportunity for a deeper consideration of the research process, particularly research ethics and university requirements (see section 7.3.2 for ethical implications of this research). The focus of this discussion of ethics is to promote enduring social relationships—rather than one-off responses to written (ethical) guidelines—that contribute to an ‘ethical form of life’ or a general condition of responsiveness to others in our day-to-day relationships (Isaacs & Massey, 1994, p. 2). This type of ethics ‘in the everyday’ broadens not only the scope of the practice of ethics as we commonly understand it, but also the range of people who are regarded as being responsible for questions of ethics.
Human Research Ethics Committee approvals were granted from universities and state authorities. These included Swinburne University of Technology and the Northern Territory Department of Education (see Appendix 2 for ethics approvals, research information sheet, and informed consent form).
3.7 Summary
This chapter focused on detailing the research approach, structured to respond to the research question. The Ntaria Design Research Framework was introduced in section 3.1 as a representation of the overall research approach, including methodology, theoretical underpinning, data collection techniques and how these elements interwove, related, and informed each other. It detailed the centrality of the Ntaria students and their drawings and enabled the research approach to always be
109 drawn back to prioritising their voices and perspectives of digital drawing and communication design education.
The research methodology was then introduced, underpinned by Indigenous research principles and approaches. How a strength-based approach was utilised within this research was explored, largely through the structuring of the research question, and in the design and delivery of the design workshops.
The intersections and implications of a strength-based approach for participatory and reflexive approaches to research were examined. Detailed here was how Indigenous methodologies have informed participatory approaches to research, with the focus on how YPAR was applied to the research. The importance of reflexive practices was discussed, and reference to personal narratives sections within the thesis included.
Theoretical underpinnings of the research were detailed, drawing from the literature review. Firstly, the Ntaria Design Educational Framework was presented in section 3.3.2, initially framing the content and delivery of the design workshops. How this framing aligned with 8-ways pedagogy was detailed. The theoretical underpinnings as they pertained to understanding capabilities were explored, focusing on utilising the approach as an evaluative framework for analysing the value of the educational program.
Following the theoretical discussions, the three stages of data gathering were described and specific techniques used within each stage introduced. Detailed here was the iterative nature of the research project and how each stage acted to inform the next. Specific details of data collection techniques, such as interviews, observations, card sorting activities, and self-reflection surveys were included and specifically, how they were operationalised within the research.
This in turn led to detailing how data analysis was approached. Described here was the approach to the three rounds of data analysis that occurred following the conclusion of the data gathering. How the participants were involved within data analysis was discussed, and how the analysis approach sought to be participatory and collaborative.
The following chapters present the results of the data analysis. Chapter 4 reveals the students’ perceptions of communication design, which include their design outcomes, design process, and meaning of design. Chapter 5 details the outcomes of the design workshops and provides an
110 understanding of how digital drawing and communication design happened through a dialogic and questioning approach to teaching and learning together. Chapter 6 identifies the capability dimensions as perceived by the students, the limitations of this framing, ultimately presenting findings on how digital drawing has value for the Ntaria young adults.
111 Interlude: Connecting
Figure 3.10: The Ntaria students telling me stories of Palm Valley, May 2017. ‘The fellas’, as they were affectionately known—not boys, but not quite men—know many stories of Country. Some they can share, and some they can’t. They are proud of these stories, and of their knowledge. They are also proud to share their stories, so that outsiders, like me, can begin to understand the importance and significance of Country.
One afternoon the fellas decided to take me out, show me some places, and tell me some stories of Country, and their importance to Ntaria’s history and to Western Arrarnta culture. On the journey to Palm Valley, one of the students, too young to have his driver’s license, provided exceptional advice about how to navigate the rough terrain of the supposed 4WD track. This was really just a series of dry, washed out creek beds, and some faint tracks worn amongst the buffle grass. Another student took my camera to document our adventure, and to take selfies. In amongst the storytelling, driving lessons, and photos, there was a backflip contest, rap battle, and a visit to a rock in the shape of a camera.
These connections developed through talking to students, being interested in their lives, listening, asking questions, being useful, helping them fix old phones, downloading songs for their iPhones, and taking selfies. These repeated interactions in ordinary everyday life at Ntaria developed into a kind of relatedness. This also worked to inform me of what questions I should be asking in relation to
112 design, and how I should be approaching and delivering learning activities. For me, this time was also embodied in delivering relevant content and skills, fixing all manner of issues with iPads and laptops, having the answers to any-and-all design queries, showing techniques, learning to do things in new ways, and slowly offering helpful techniques and ways of working with digital drawing and design technologies.
The more time I spent with them, the more I came to be involved in adventures outside the classroom. Often afternoon ‘outdoor sessions’, pitched by students as ‘going outside to be inspired’ turned into extended bush trips. We would set off in the School troopy (4WD bus), stop in what seemed to me to be the middle of the bush, take long walks to collect bush foods, and the students would share stories of Country. What could be written off as an excuse to get out of the classroom; these adventures instilled a sense of quiet and calm amongst students, having space to think about the meaning and relevance of the signs and symbols they used in their design work, and how they related to both Western Arrarnta traditions and their contemporary lives. These trips also broke down barriers of teacher/student or researcher/participant and allowed me to become more relatable. Through these trips, we were exploring what a shared approach to communication design education on country could be without really knowing it at the time.
There were also times of distress, heartbreak, and grief. The tragic deaths of two young people who had taken their own lives, only months apart, was devastating on so many levels. The heavy effects rippled across the community. They also took their toll personally. Seeing students’ faces during this time, hearing them wail, holding their hands at funerals, and spending time at sorry camps weighed heavily on me. The impact of these events is hard to describe and difficult to talk about. The prevalence of Indigenous youth suicide is well documented, but the ongoing devastating effects on the community are harder to fathom as a non-Indigenous researcher. Indigenous researcher Karen Martin points to researchers conduct at times such as these, that ‘reflects the extent to which the researcher is prepared to show respect in understanding that research is not a priority in times of crisis, grieving, celebration, ritual or maintenance of relations’ (2003, p. 212). At this time, cultural practices and priorities in regard to sorry business were valued and the research stopped. This was a decision underpinned by trust, care, and respect. I returned home and gave the students and community time and space to heal.
113 Chapter 4: The Digital Drawings
4.1 Introduction: Imagining communication design
This chapter is centred on how Western Arrarnta young adults imagine communication design through an examination of their digital drawings, design process, and meanings. As such, this chapter contains many of the digital drawings, stories, and quotes from the participants, detailing their own perspectives and imaginings. The findings are based on the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data collected during Stage 1 (understanding Ntaria capabilities in relation to design), Stage 2 (the delivery of the design workshops), and Stage 3 (evaluating and assessing value). See section 3.4 on data collection techniques for more detail on the research stages. The Ntaria students’ imaginings of communication design are broken into three interconnected areas. These three focus areas and resulting thematics within each aspect were identified through a collaborative analysis process. They represent:
(1) the underlying principles of the Ntaria digital drawings,
(2) imaginings of a Ntaria communication design process, and
(3) the meaning of communication design in Ntaria.
Firstly, the Ntaria students’ digital drawings completed during the design workshops are discussed. This introduces the stories that accompany these drawings, which act to illuminate the visuals with meaning and significance. The stories show ‘how’ to look at the digital drawings, what to see—to look in a different way—situating the digital drawings as representations of knowledge. By highlighting the digital drawings and their accompanying stories, this chapter introduces Ntaria perceptions and underlying principles of communication design.
Secondly, a Ntaria communication design process is described. Through engaging in the design workshops over a period of 12 months, the students have documented and described the way they design, revealing a connectedness and interrelation between drawing, knowledge, Country, and wellbeing. The collective understanding of process occurred through a group analysis, supported by both interviews, observations, visual responses, and card sorting methods.
Thirdly, the meaning of design within the life-worlds of the Ntaria students is described. This section documents the student’s perceptions of design, and how they fit within social, cultural, and
114 relational understandings. It explores how the students’ digital drawings are created, circulated, and valued in Ntaria. Understanding the meaning of communication design in Ntaria occurred through multiple semi-structured interviews, and a self-reflection survey.
This chapter presents the results in a way that encourages the time and space to look, listen to, and learn from the Ntaria young adults and their imaginings of communication design. This mode of presenting the Ntaria digital drawings, process, and perceptions builds on research that suggests ‘storytellers well-being and autonomy of voice should be at the centre of a project’ (Gubrium et al., 2014, p.1607). The students chose the names they wanted to be called within this chapter, and when to remain anonymous. They also chose which drawings could be shown, giving them autonomy and ownership of their work.
4.1.1 First impressions
Before the design workshop program began, six of the senior students were initially asked to share their prior experiences of using creative tools and digital technologies. This data was collected during Stage 1 of the research which sought to gather preliminary information regarding students’ knowledge of design, their current use of digital technology, and their desire to use it within a classroom context. Revealed here is the data obtained through observations and semi-structured interviews before the design program began. It situates the students’ imaginings within a contextual background of their prior experiences and visual outcomes.
Ntaria creative practices, mediums, and tools (detailed within Appendix 1) present a story where Western Arrarnta people have applied and adapted tools and mediums to express themselves while retaining a distinct visual language of depicting Country and its stories. The Hermannsburg Potters, whose art centre is located directly opposite the school, is an ever-present point of influence. It is strikingly visible within the community, with many students having family members working as artists. It is part of the everyday at Ntaria. The pots depict stories of Ntaria and draw on the landscape paintings popularised by the Hermannsburg watercolourists (see Figure 4.1). There is a constant coming and going of students within the Hermannsburg Potters, as they visit family, and on occasion, engage in educational programs with Ntaria School. The students also engage in watercolour painting workshops with the Iltja Ntjarra (Many Hands) Art Centre, based in Alice
Springs. Watercolour artists regularly visit Ntaria, holding a workshop with the students twice per year.
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Figure 4.1: Carol Rontji, Alakuki, 1995 Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.
Despite the importance of these creative practices, there is no ongoing creative arts curriculum within the senior years at Ntaria School, and the students have had no experience with any design- oriented education.
During these initial discussions, it became clear to me that visual expressions were firmly grounded in culture, Country, and dreaming. The students explained how watercolour paintings and pots draw from the symbolism and iconography of ancestral dreaming, alongside contemporary stories about football. Renewing stories and documenting important events is a precious activity in Ntaria. In the initial group discussions, several students describe what these visual expressions mean to them:
Art means culture. Keeping our culture strong. Art is tjukurpa. (Student 1)
Art tells stories about Country and culture. The potters tell stories. About birds and animals. About football. About the dreaming. Our Country. Our land. The landscape. (Student 2)
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Art is precious. Because they [the Hermannsburg Potters] love doing it. They draw Country. (Student 3)
These statements exemplify the interconnectedness of story, culture, and Country, situating these practices as a vital part of community. The interpretation of student’s statements suggest they see these practices as sites of self-determination—an enduring link to the land. They meld and connect the spiritual with the everyday, highlighting how these practices function as sites of pride, of feeling good, and of being connected.
The students talked about drawing in the sand, watching stories being told, and listening and learning. They talked about being on Country, and learning to paint like Albert Namatjira. As one of the students explains:
I started drawing when I was a kid at school. When I was little, I used to draw lots of shapes in the sand. We also did watercolour painting at school. (Student 4)
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Clockwise from top left. Figure 4.2: A student demonstrates sand drawing. Figure 4.3: Carol Ragget, Mt Hermannsburg, 2012. Figure 4.4: Daryl Malbunka, Sand Hill, Ntaria. 2012. Figure 4.5: Anonymous. These images reveal the different visual expressions of the students before the design workshops began. They are ties to the legacy of visual production in Ntaria, from traditional sand drawing and iconography, to landscape painting.
The students’ visual expressions, completed prior to the beginning of this research (see Figures 4.2– 4.5) highlight the use of traditional iconography, akin to symbols used within sand drawing, the stipple (dot) painting effect, and ochre colours. Seeing how these stories work as multimodal storytelling practices provides an insight into the narrative traditions of Ntaria’s visual language. Yet it is evident that there are established practices on the style of the Hermannsburg watercolourists and Hermannsburg Potters. The prior work of the students largely follows these styles—replicating and reinforcing the painterly landscapes that have dominated Ntaria’s visual history.
In discussing forms of image making, the interviewed students did not connect their painterly expressions with their use of digital mediums. While mobile phones are common in Ntaria, their only access to computers and iPads is through Ntaria school. They are adept at using the technology, despite their limited access. The majority of students have their own mobile phone and are savvy internet users. Akin to other teenagers, they use snapchat and Instagram as spaces to communicate, share, and represent their identities. Global youth culture has by no means bypassed Ntaria and the participants are keen consumers and users of digital media as a means of self-expression, as one student expresses:
We use our phones for texting and selfies. Listening to music. Playing games. We go online, calls, divas chat, snapchat, Instagram. (Student 1)
118 As the statement exemplifies, the students digitally manipulate their online selves. Through camera apps and filters, they have explored digital image making as a means of self-expression. Through this, they have experienced creating and making on their phone, by experimenting, placing elements, words, and graphics together to make compositions to post online. As one student explains:
I draw on my phone. We write our names in graffiti styles. (Student 5)
The students interviewed explain how they use apps such as ‘Artists A’ or ‘Sweet Selfie’ to transform their selfies into digital works. Some students were happy to share their selfies (see Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6: Student examples of drawings on their phones and digital forms of self-representation
The significance of watercolour and pottery is not mirrored by the students as they talk about their digital expressions. These expressions, perhaps largely predetermined through the apps used, still highlight a representation of self, and make the possibilities of digital mediums visible. From early conversations about visual practices and digital mediums, the students expressed an interest in developing digital drawing skills, and one student remarks:
We are all interested in learning to draw new ways on iPad’s and computers. So we can design graffiti on the streets. On the phone. So I can design stuff for my car, and I can design my car. So we can design clothes. (Student 6)
Here, we get our first glimpse of the students’ initial perspectives of design. The students speak to difference between traditional forms and digital spaces. Yet they are active consumers of technology and use these spaces to represent and visually interpret their identities in contemporary ways. The
119 initial conversations revealed they were interested in connecting Ntaria’s visual history with new technologies in experimental ways.
Overview of design workshop program
In order to provide some context around how the digital drawings were created, it is necessary to give an outline of the design workshops. (A more detailed description of the design workshops is provided in Chapter 5.)
The design workshops were held over two school days every week, across three terms in 2017 and 2018. (See Figure 1.7 in section 1.6, Chapter 1, for a more detailed overview.) These workshops were embedded within the students Employment Pathways curriculum and thus students were not missing out on other classes by participating. The Ntaria school staff also integrated literacy and numeracy activities to align with the design workshops (see section 5.2 for more detail on how the design workshops were integrated into students learning outcomes). In 2017 the design workshops were split by gender—females one day, males the next. However, in 2018 the classes were grouped, and both genders attended both days of the design workshops. The gender segregation was set by Ntaria School staff, yet there was no significant alteration in the classroom dynamic due to these changes. While the number of students enrolled during this period was over 40, 16 students produced completed designs, and partook in interviews, card sorting activities, self-reflection surveys, and later, the collective analysis workshop.
Initial classroom tasks were based around the creation of design outcomes and the specific introduction of different digital drawing techniques within the Adobe range of iPad apps. Early tasks were based on creating vector shapes, through ‘live tracing’ photographs and hand drawings, applying digital ‘shapes’ within the app, and drawing directly onto the iPad surface. This led to the design of a logo for the class group. Students were then directed to ‘tell a story’ framed as a design brief where they could experiment with the tools and work digitally. Following these initial tasks, students self-directed their own design tasks based on self-selected outcomes.
4.2 Underlying principles of Ntaria design
This section focuses on the analysis of the students’ digital drawings, as they pertain to the first aim of the research—exploring how Western Arranta young adults imagine design. The digital drawings
120 act as a visual testament to the detailed observations of young adults as they re-make their own worlds, inhabiting the old and the new. The sample size of the drawings includes all completed digital drawings from 16 senior students from Ntaria School who gave permission for their works to be included within this analysis (see Appendix 3 for all drawings completed during the design workshops.)
The completed digital drawings are grouped according to their underlying principles, rather than their visual content or style. While student designs draw on a range of styles and influences, from traditional iconography to American hip hop and rap, here they were grouped by what was important to them. The three core themes and subsequent sub-themes were collectively identified as important, supported by the recurrence of ideas and motifs within the drawings, design workshops, and through the analysis process. These three groupings emerged through ongoing dialogue with the students. Completed digital drawings were laid out within the classroom, and students spoke to what was important to know about them. From these conversations around both the visual elements and accompanying stories of the digital drawings, three thematics, each with two subthemes, were identified:
(1) Talking story
a. Drawing Country: Remembering and telling culture stories
b. Telling stories in new ways: Identity and Ntaria life
(2) Sharing and connecting
a. It’s important to know the old stories: Connecting with family
b. We got to pass things on when we get older: Sharing knowledge
(3) Newness
a. I’m not really into the cultural stuff: Current expressions
b. We are the old and the new: Surface styles
4.2.1 Talking story
Presented here are the stories the students told through their digital drawings. These expressions give meaning to their experiences as young adults in Ntaria, as keepers of language and knowledge, but also of experiences negotiated by talking story with digital tools. Here stories are told, often
121 informed by the past, by the work of Western Arrarnta artists, but also from watching TV and being engaged in national discussions of identity, politics, and of being Aboriginal.
The thematic of ‘talking story’ within the students’ digital drawings are grouped into two sections:
(a) drawing Country which depicts the significance of the Western Arrarnta landscape, while (b) telling stories in new ways shows how the students explore telling new stories about their lived experiences. The relationships between landscape, identity, and ritual life are explored within the Ntaria digital drawings about ‘talking story.’
Drawing Country: Remembering and telling culture stories
The students placed a strong emphasis on the importance of Country. Their digital drawings make reference to the older artistic traditions of depicting the vibrant Ntaria landscape and knowledge that lies within. Yet while students’ draw from the visual influences of the region; Country has been remade on the iPad from a present-day perspective. This section analyses six examples of the students’ drawings that show how details within their drawings reference Western Arrarnta Country through the remembering and telling of stories. Taren White’s honey ant design (Figure 4.7) is symbolic of remembering and telling culture stories. As she explains:
This is Yarumba. They are special to this place. (Taren White)
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Figure 4.7: Example 1, Taren White. Honey ant story. Digital drawing, 2016. This design speaks to the enduring legacy of Yarumba, the prevalence of this icon within Western Arrarnta creative expression. The sacred honey- ant totem site, just to the east of the Hermannsburg community, is largely defined by this story. Yarumba (honey ants) are an important link between totem associations and interdependence on the environment, as Yarumba are also an iconic bush food in Ntaria.
Instructed to design a logo for the students’ class ‘studio’, Taren collected eucalyptus leaves, creating a vector shape by directly photographing the leaves against a white backdrop (Figure 4.8). This is layered against a digital drawing of Yarumba. The layering of flora and fauna, of Country and culture tells a story of what is important to Taren. The elements represent a holistic understanding of country, as place, life, and ancestral knowledge.
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Figure 4.8: Creating honey ant story. Top, clockwise: Collecting eucalyptus leaves on the drive out to Ipolera. Collecting bush foods to photograph and turn into vector shapes. Layering a logo design on the iPad with the use of the Apple pencil at Ntaria School.
Sasha and Larissa’s digital drawings (Figures 4.9, 4.10) show Mt Hermannsburg and the Finke River at different points in time. Larissa draws the Finke River in flood. Sasha depicts the dry river bed, yet it is a landscape full of life.
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Figure 4.9: Example 2, Sasha Campbell, Mt Hermannsburg. Digital drawing, 2018. The vibrancy of country is taken to new heights by the application of digital colour, seemingly radiating from the glow of the screen.
My design is a landscape from my country. It is of two mountains with a river that flows through the middle after the rain. (Sasha Campbell)
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Figure 4.10: Example 3, Larissa Pepperill. Mt Hermannsburg and the Finke River. Digital drawing, 2018. Showing the river in flood highlights the seasonal significance and changing nature of country. Usually a series of waterholes, the flooding of the Finke River signals not just the abundance of water and life, but a time when families and kids play in the river, fish, and tell stories.
After the rain the Finke River floods. The Pampas has turned green. The valleys on the hill show where the water has run. The clouds are breaking up after the rain has stopped. (Larissa Pepperill)
The landscapes from Sasha and Larissa tell stories of the seasons, of watching and learning, as the rains come, the river swells, and becomes impassable. They also tell of dry creek beds, the sustaining life force of the river and its significance to Ntaria. The flat blocks of colour show the vitality of this Country, the red dirt, purple ranges, and green pampas. It captures the life and energy within these stories of Country and their enduring importance to young adults in Ntaria.
126 The digital drawings also reflect the sacred nature of Country, and the stories country holds. The students depicted the cultural significance of country by sharing stories of important places, incorporating both traditional iconography and contemporary styles. In ‘Waterhole’ (Figure 4.11) Tyrone connects the importance of family and culture through the depiction of a special place.
Figure 4.11: Example 4, Tyrone Sena. Waterhole. Digital drawing, 2017. Concentric circles traditionally used to depict an important place create an ebb and flow of rippling water, while the bold, layered colours reflect a new way of looking at land. The tradition of fishing at 8 Mile, an outstation just outside of Ntaria continues for Tyrone, as this place maintains a significant importance for his sense of place and identity within community.
I’ve drawn a waterhole with fishes. It’s a waterhole I know at 8 Mile, with the water connecting to it. I drew it because it reminds me of a special water place. It’s important because it’s our culture. We go fishing and we get a lot of fish. My family go there. (Tyrone Sena)
Tyrone’s digital drawing of Country depicts a landscape inhabited by generations past, of cultural traditions—a melding of place and story. He depicts a place where water connects. This story of
127 Country serves as a reminder of the relations between family, knowledge, and place. In Noel’s digital drawing (Figure 4.12), the links between story, knowledge, and place are again highlighted.
Figure 4.12: Example 5, Noel Raggett. The Bright Star. Digital drawing, 2018.
This is a design of the desert at dusk. The hunter and his dingo went to get some kangaroo for his family. He saw a tree and went up on the hills. Then he saw a star and walked towards it with his dingo. The big bright star takes them to a good place. My idea came from thinking about the bright star. It’s a special story. (Noel Raggett)
128 Similar themes are explored within Gideon’s digital drawing (Figure 4.13), melding more literal depictions of bush food with aerial depictions of place and people. It tells us a story of looking for bush tucker, of learning from family, and the knowledge inherent within his links to Country.
Figure 4.13: Example 6, Gideon Malbunka. Digital drawing, 2017.
The students’ digital drawings tell us stories of Ntaria and links together family, history, and knowledge. The digital drawings capture the centrality of place, and the different ways Country can be visually represented. It highlights a relational aspect to the digital drawings, connecting elements of the past and recreating them to renew and reaffirm these links.
Telling stories in new ways: Identity and Ntaria life
While the students were able to tell stories with digital drawing that connected them to culture, family, and history, working on a digital medium also allowed them the space to engage in telling stories in new ways. Here, lived experience is emphasised. As Country acted as a foundation block of identity for many of the students; working with a digital tool enabled students to experiment from a
129 basis of place, but to feel comfortable engaging with digital outcomes and telling contemporary stories. The five digital drawings discussed here bring to light current ways of being in the world for the Western Arrarnta young adults. They enable an engagement with the lived experiences of the students, revealing the clash, reconstruction, and amalgamation of their totemic associations with their current modern identities.
New ways of engaging with telling stories is detailed in Bowen’s work (Figure 4.14) combining a passion for playing AFL (Australian Football) as a young Aboriginal man.
Figure 4.14: Example 1, Bowen Abbott. AFL at Uluru. Digital drawing, 2017. The ways Ntaria young adults represent themselves within their digital drawings is informed by their lived realities and contemporary experiences. The Aboriginal flag continues to be a powerful symbol of strength and political resistance for Aboriginal people.
This is a design of Uluru that I used to have a dream about. It’s a good place. The red is for the sand, and the sky is full of stars. It is a special place. AFL is also a good sport to me – I like to play. I drew this because I was thinking of my dream. (Bowen Abbott)
The colours used within ‘AFL at Uluru’ reference the Aboriginal flag, designed by Luritja man Harold Thomas. Thomas says the colours of the flag, red, black, and yellow, represent the Aboriginal people
130 of Australia, the red ochre colour of earth and a spiritual relation to the land and the sun, the giver of life and protector (AIATSIS). Here, Bowen tells a modern story of his dreams and aspirations, revealing pride in his Aboriginal identity and how this melds with his passion for football.
Telling stories of playing footy were repeatedly depicted by students, which were often linked with expressions of cultural identity. In Gideon’s digital drawing (Figure 4.15), the AFL ball is incorporated within a design featuring traditional iconography (in the use of concentric circles representing an importance place, and U shapes as people sitting), melded with depictions of footprints (a characteristic of playing AFL in bare feet in Ntaria). Gideon’s digital drawing acts as an assertion of being an Aboriginal young adult today.
Figure 4.15: Example 2, Gideon Malbunka. Playing Footy. Digital drawing, 2018.
131 This is a story about football and how the fellas come together to tell stories about how to be a good footy player. (Gideon Malbunka)
In telling stories of their lives in Ntaria, the digital drawings often conveyed lived realities, and the powerful and positive experiences of being Aboriginal. The repeated use of colours from the Aboriginal flag prominently expresses students’ pride in their culture. In Figure 4.16, Edrick combines traditional iconographic elements and graphically represents the Aboriginal flag within his depiction of a boomerang. Sheila’s design (Figure 4.17) appropriates the flag and positions it as an icon of strength within a contemporary representation.
Figure 4.16: Example 3, Edrick Coultard. Digital drawing, 2017.
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Figure 4.17: Example 4, Sheila Rubuntja. Digital drawing, 2018. Her design represents what it means to be a ‘smart black woman’, her love and respect for culture, and the strength within this identity—depicting a powerful and positive contemporary identity.
My design is about being black and proud! I want to show people I am a strong and smart black woman! (Sheila Rubuntja)
133 Depictions of youth identity are further reflected in the students’ work. Latrelle’s drawing (Figure 4.18) again utilises the colours of the Aboriginal flag as an assertion of cultural identity and pride. These everyday moments tell positive stories of youth identity, and what is important to them.
Figure 4.18: Example 5, Latrelle Pareroultja. Digital drawing, 2018. Lived experience is emphasised here through the telling of a story of playing footy in the red dirt, of going fishing, and of the stories in the night sky.
The importance of story was a clear principle throughout the students’ drawings, as evidenced through the 11 examples above. This was further reinforced by the many different depictions of Country, the students’ lived experiences, and their representations of identity. The recounting of stories both orally and visually, personal and collective, is premised on the idea that the lives and relationships of people are shaped by the stories that communities negotiate and engage in to give meaning to their experiences (Graham, 2009, p. 72).
The landscape forges Aboriginal people, totemic associations, and ancestral spirits as one. For Western Arrarnta people life is enduringly of place, in place, and with place (Albrecht, 2000). The digital drawings, in reflecting past visual traditions, also reflect knowledge traditions through their depiction of Country. Much has been written about Indigenous attachment to land, and its links to wellbeing, reflecting the relationships of Country with identity (Berndt & Berndt, 1967; Elkin, 1974;
134 Rose, 1996; Stanner, 2009; Stockton, 1995; Strehlow, 1947; Swain, 1993). In Ntaria, Country is a living, feeling entity (Bessarab, 2008). People, ‘… speak to country, sing to country, visit country, worry about country, feel sorry for country, and long for country. People say that country knows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy’ (Rose, 1996, p.7).
The Ntaria young adults also learn through Country. Attachment to land is linked with learning, and the subsequent internalisation of knowledge that has been passed on through generations. Their learning, attachments, and associations with their Country are reflected on digital screens, giving a digital dimension and way of sharing their enduring emotional connectedness to place (Myers, 1986).
4.2.2 Sharing and connecting
This section looks at 18 examples of the student’s digital drawings that represent stories and knowledge passed down from family. Their digital drawings and accompanying descriptions identified the centrality of relationships. The works are discussed in relation to two thematics that came out of the conversations with participants.
(a) It’s important to know the old stories: Connecting with family, which highlights how the
drawings detail the importance of kinship ties, and
(b) We got to pass things on when we get older: Sharing knowledge, which details how the
drawings express an intergeneration exchange of knowledge.
In Ntaria, the right to use particular stories and symbols is limited to traditional custodians, and this understanding is evident with the students’ work. As an example to show this, the women from the Hermannsburg Potters were regular visitors to the classroom when the students were engaged in learning design and in telling stories. A major presence was senior artist Judith Inkamala, a local member of the Ntaria community. She showed me that in a system in which access to knowledge is also regulated by a complex system of personal, cultural, and political negotiation, students may or may not be able to represent particular themes, or be able to share them in the same way. Judith Inkamala illuminates this system, stating:
135 I don’t do story pots, only animals, birds, bush tucker and landscapes. My grandmother didn’t teach me. I’m not allowed to do it because other tribes might say ‘this story belongs to me’ and I might get in trouble. (cited in West, 1996, p.10)
Whereas, other families have the kin and cultural authority to know and share creation stories, as Ida Enalanga from the Potters explains:
Sometimes I do Dreaming stories from mother’s and father’s side. I paint bush tucker and sometime Dreaming. My Dreaming is the snake and bush tuckers like wild onion and honey ants everyway. (cited in West, 1996, p. 10)
The digital drawings of the students below reflect the dynamics expressed by Judith and Ida. This reveals how the students negotiated this space with the introduction of a digital medium.
It’s important to know the old stories: Connecting with family
The students’ drawings emphasised the importance of family, through the sharing of knowledge, and the importance of identity. The nine drawings examined here reveal this continuity as they draw from stories and traditional iconography, working to re-present them in digital ways. Latoya’s digital drawing (Figure 4.19) represents how design can renew connections with family, tradition, and knowledge.
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Figure 4.19: Example 1, Latoya Fly. Digital drawing, 2017. Latoya’s drawing of bush food connects her to family, as she reproduces an intergenerational exchange, through watching, learning, and listening.
My design is of people sitting and enjoying local bush foods like bush banana, honey ants and witchetty grub. Honey ants you will find underground. Bush onions you will see on the side of the road and witchetty grubs you will find in the roots. These bush foods are my favourites. They come in all different colours and shapes and they are
137 different from all other foods. Yarumba, honey ants, they live underground, red sands. Kutjera, you see them on the road. And Langwa you see them on the trees out bush. Witchetty grub, you dig the tree and in the roots. My ideas come from the bush. From when we go out hunting and my Grandparents talking about stories. (Latoya Fly)
This knowledge passed on through generations is visualised within her digital drawing. From the accompanying story, her drawing points to her focus on the renewal of kinship ties and their importance within her current and future life in Ntaria. As Latoya further explains:
When I am older, I want to become like my Grandmother, an artist. I need to learn from her and ask her a lot of questions. I want my life to be special. I am inspired by my Grandmother and Grandfather. My Grandfather is a really good drawer. My Grandmother is a painter. They share their stories with me. I watch them draw and paint and I get ideas from them. (Latoya Fly)
Latrelle also recounts how his digital drawings are inspired and connected to kinship ties:
My ideas come from my head. From my culture. I get ideas from my Grandfather, Lofty. He is a good drawer and tells lots of stories. (Latrelle Kantawarra)
Similarly, Rakesh’s digital drawing also ties to family stories to recreate a digital representation of the knowledge that has been passed on through generations of her family. In Figure 4.20 Rakesh details a scene of bush tucker. In sharing and connecting with family, the digital drawings created a cyclical affirmation of identity and supported the continued use of family motifs and iconography across generations.
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Figure 4.20: Example 2, Rakesh/Keshani Sweet. Digital drawing, 2017. Rakesh’s Grandmother, upon seeing a print of her work, came to tell me that she had taught this story to Rakesh, and to give her approval and support for Rakesh to continue its telling.
This is a design of bush tucker – witchetty grub, honey ants, bush onion, bush banana and bush tomato. In the middle, people are digging for witchetty grub. We go collect them out bush in the afternoon. (Rakesh/Keshani Sweet)
139 The students’ digital drawings examined here reinforce that for Western Arrarnta people, the relationships between family, community, and Country are foundational for identity (Weatherall, 2001, p. 219). The connections are evident within the depictions of bush foods and the underlying knowledge learnt from family on how, when, and where to find and harvest them. The stories attached to this knowledge are depicted in the students’ digital drawings. Taren’s depiction of bush bananas (Figure 4.21), and Daryl’s digital drawing of honey ants (Figure 4.22) share their knowledge of country and the lessons learnt from family.
Figure 4.21: Example 3, Taren White. Langwa. Digital drawing, 2017.
140
These are Langwa (bush banana) from the trees at Ipolera. They are important bush foods. I like to eat them. They are sweet. (Taren White)
Figure 4.22: Example 4, Daryl Malbunka. Digital drawing, 2017.
I draw people sitting down, digging for honey ants. This is the ants’ houses and they are going to their house, finding which place they’re going to camp. Honey ants are important because they are bush tuckers. Because they are good to eat. They taste like honey, sort of. (Daryl Malbunka)
Connecting with family was also represented within the students’ drawing through their depictions of places and totems, which are intimately tied to a responsibility to look after Country. These drawings also bound their identity with place, through the use of written surnames—displaying a strong bond between Country and heritage. In Figure 4.23, Naphtalie depicts a Spinifex Pigeon or
Nturrurta, an ancestral totem and dreaming story within Western Arrarnta culture. Naphtalie
141 graphically combines the dreaming with his family name to show the intimate links between culture and identity.
Similarly Figures 4.24 and 4.25 respectively signal the specific links between kin and Country. Melanie depicts family ties to Mount Sonder (Figure 4.25) while Larissa highlights her family connection to Ikuntji or Haasts Bluff, a mountain range to the west of Hermannsburg (Figure 4.24).
Figure 4.23: Example 5, Naphtalie Malbunka. Digital drawing, 2018. Figure 4.24: Example 6, Larissa Pepperill. Digital drawing, 2017. Figure 4.25: Example 7, Melanie Inkamala. Digital drawing, 2017.
Family connection or the importance of family was also depicted by students through the placement of elements together in a collage of the old and new. Aretha’s (Figure 4.26) and Nelson’s (Figure 4.27) drawings bring their connections to family into the present day, presenting a combination of
142 contemporary imagery, expression, and patterns to continue showing their pride in family, and the complex history embedded within their names and identities. These depictions present new ways of seeing Western Arrarnta youth identity, influenced by modern branding and apparel, yet firmly rooted within cultural heritage.
Figure 4.26: Example 8, Aretha Namatjira. Digital drawing, 2017. Figure 4.27: Example 9, Nelson Pareroultja. Digital drawing, 2017.
The students’ works examined here identify how their representations can be harnessed to enhance their own connection and status among their family, clan, and Country. Their works represent a circulation of story and voice across generations. The drawings affirm their knowledge and present it in a circular way, using digital drawing to tell the stories back to their family, but also beyond. That by showing, giving, receiving, remembering, and seeing, produces a relationship, of respecting, sharing, and connecting.
We got to pass things on when we get older: Sharing knowledge
The students work identified the role of sharing knowledge as an important component of their digital drawings. The nine digital drawings here reveal the students are aware of the significance of the knowledge they have gained, and the importance of passing it on to the next generation.
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Figure 4.28: Example 1, Latoya Fly. Digital drawing, 2018. Latoya depicts a story of hunting for honey ants, but importantly the aim of this work is to communicate the intricate process of finding and digging for the ants to her younger sister.
I want to show my little sister how to get witchetty grubs and honey ants. She likes eating them and finding them. My favourite things to do are sharing stories, going hunting, looking for bush tuckers. (Latoya Fly)
144 Latoya’s drawing (Figure 4.28) continues to express the importance of the ritual, sacred stories of her family, how these need to be learned, treasured, and shared to ensure this knowledge is not lost. The medium of digital drawing, allowing for a space for Latoya to express this knowledge and replicate her story with digital tools.
It’s fun drawing and designing things. It’s special to me. Sharing my stories. It’s special because it’s about my dreaming. My dreaming stories are from my family. From my Grandmother and Grandfather. (Latoya Fly)
Other students also documented their knowledge of Country and story through their works. Bush foods (Figures 4.29 & 4.30), including honey ants (Figure 4.31) and bush onions (Figure 4.32) were frequently depicted (both function as dreaming stories from Ntaria, as well as common bush foods of the area). Through drawing these stories, the students act to renew and regenerate their cultural and spiritual knowledge, connecting the past with the present moment.
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Clockwise from top left. Figure 4.29: Example 2, Carol Ragget. Bush foods. Digital drawing, 2018. Figure 4.30: Example 3, Rakesh/Keshani Sweet. Bush foods. Digital drawing, 2018. Figure 4.31: Example 4, Daryl Malbunka. Bush foods. Digital drawing, 2018. Figure 4.32: Example 5, Sasha Campbell. Bush foods. Digital drawing, 2018.
The sharing of knowledge was also expressed by students, not just of the sacred, but of Ntaria’s more recent history. Stanley expresses not just his love of horses within Figure 4.33, but their importance within his family and Ntaria’s history. Through his digital drawing, Stanley connects to the legacy created by his family, and how the traditions and skills have passed on through the generations.
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Figure 4.33: Example 6, Stanley Kenny. Digital drawing, 2017. The legacy of stockmen and Aboriginal servicemen, serving with the Light Horse in the Middle East is an important historical moment in Ntaria community.
I’ve drawn a horse. I like horses. I like riding them. It’s a good thing. They are important to me as my uncles and grandfathers taught me how to ride horses – they used to ride when they was younger. I’m following the next generation. (Stanley Kenny)
The power of sharing contemporary stories was also identified by the students. Within Western Arrarnta culture, football is a large part of life. AFL in Ntaria is often represented through the incorporation of symbolism from the local team—the Western Arrarnta bulldogs—highlighted in Nelson’s design (Figure 4.34). Here Nelson shares a little part of Ntaria’s history and his respect for the legacy of the team.
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Figure 4.34: Example 7, Nelson Pareoultja. Digital drawing, 2017. Historically the teams’ colours were red, green, and white. It is a nod to Ntaria’s past, respecting the history of the community and the pride apparent in watching the local team, of cheering on family members, and of looking up to the older players.
The act of sharing and of telling stories was also expressed by numerous students, as they depict the importance of ritual, Country, and spirit. Nelson’s digital drawing (Figure 4.35) expresses a cycle of intergenerational knowledge sharing—signalling the imperative importance of sharing stories within Western Arrarnta culture. In Figure 4.36 Carol depicts stories being expressed and shared through dance and ceremony.
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Figure 4.35: Example 8, Nelson Pareoultja. Digital drawing, 2017.
With design, I can make anything. I can tell stories, like sitting around the fire. This here is people sitting around the fire talking story. The colours – that’s how the colours have to be. Yeah. Telling stories is important so we can pass it on to our families when we get older. (Nelson Pareoultja)
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Figure 4.36: Example 9, Carol Ragget. Digital drawing, 2017. Her drawing is reminiscent of the sentiments of Western Arrarnta artist Wenten Rubuntja, who expresses: ‘The town grew up dancing, and still the dancing is there under the town … We still have the culture … It’s the same story we have from the old people, from the beginning’ (Rubuntja & Green, 2002, p.1).
The importance of sharing and connecting, of the relationships between the Ntaria young adults and their social, cultural, and spiritual words are highlighted within their digital drawings. Their descriptions enhance the vital importance of their responsibilities to keep the knowledge of their stories alive and to pass it onto the following generation. Some of the works mediate a relationship that derives its power from the ancestral. Others show respect for men and for their fathers. The
150 drawing, showing, making visible, and sharing produces an intergeneration exchange. It is not always a relationship with the ancestral, imbued in the representations, but a relation to family, culture, and identity. The drawings detail and represent stories and knowledge passed down from family.
4.2.3 Newness
The third thematic of ‘newness’ was identified by the students during the data analysis workshop as being an important part of their digital drawings. Utilising digital tools enabled the students to use a toolkit of options—shapes, lines, colours, layers, effects—digital ways of drawing and creating. They acknowledged that working in a digital medium allowed a space where they were free to explore their lived experiences and contemporary identities. These works show ‘who I am’ within the modernity of the everyday in Ntaria, mediated by the accessibility of global youth culture.
The concept of ‘newness’ in the students’ works are discussed in relation to two subthemes: (a) ‘I’m not really into the cultural stuff: current expressions’ which depict the students’ work that draws on influences outside Western Arrarnta culture, while (b) ‘We are the old and the new: surface styles’ shows how the students merge local and global influences to express ideas about self-identity and what it means to be a young Aboriginal in Ntaria. These 14 works across both sub-themes show how technology, culture, and modernity intertwine. It is hoped the digital drawings will facilitate an appreciation of Ntaria perspectives of design in ways that move well beyond stereotypes of ‘ancestral’ or ‘traditional’ to provoke understandings of how digital technologies can connect and represent contemporary Western Arrarnta youth experiences.
I’m not really into the cultural stuff: Current expressions
As young adults living in a world in which visual media are abundantly present, the students expressed how digital ways of creating enabled them to draw from influences outside of family and creative legacies, roles and responsibilities. The digital medium created a space for them to express who they are, drawing on contemporary influences and their lived realities. These drawings present their work that experiments with difference and otherness as they make sense of their place within the world. Judith Ryan explores how concepts of ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ limit understandings, because elements of the traditional and the contemporary exist in all Aboriginal creative expressions. She argues:
151 When today’s indigenous artists draw or paint—making marks on paper, board or bark—they are engaged in current activities that belong squarely to the twentieth century. The final painting, sculpture, photograph or textile may be linked to ritual, ‘40 000 years of Dreaming’, body-painting, rock art, the black history of colonisation – or none of those things. It may result from what the artist has seen, songs her mother taught her, a liking for blue paint or a compulsion to draw. None of these associations should preclude it from being considered … worthy of our serious attention. (1996, para. 28)
Working within a digital medium, the students were able to explore and integrate contemporary sources of inspiration and digital content from music they listen to, and the clothing brands they aspire to wear. It is important to address that these expressions, through the introduction of digital technologies are not eradicating tradition, but allow the students to explore their identities within a connected world.
Through the means of learning to digitally draw, the students responded to their contemporary lifestyles. Ashley experiments with shapes and motifs that depart from distinct Western Arrarnta expressions. As evidenced by Ashley below, digital drawing offers a way of engaging outside established ways of working. This medium offers possibilities, away from watercolours and pots where he can express his interests, influences, and aspirations.
Figure 4.37: Example 1, Ashley Lankin. Digital drawing, 2017. Figure 4.38: Example 2, Ashley Lankin. Digital drawing, 2017.
152 I’m not really into the cultural stuff. I like to design. You can make shirts. I’d like to make a hat and shoes. (Ashley Lankin)
Exploring different styles and shapes is also evident in the work of Latoya in Figure 4.39. The digital surface enabled experimentation with colour, shape, and line.
Figure 4.39: Example 3, Latoya Fly. Digital drawing, 2017. While Latoya has also previously drawn bush foods and the stories of her grandparents, here she creates a design ‘without a story’ but a visual representation of her choice, drawing from a different kind of inspiration. Not of flowers from the local landscape, but her own imagination.
Exploring their contemporary identities, the students also drew selfies—digitally captured and turned into vectors with the Adobe Capture app on the iPad. Here the students manipulated their own images, constructing themselves in ways they want to be seen.
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Figure 4.40: Example 4, Ashley Lankin. Digital drawing, 2017. Figure 4.41: Example 5, Edrick. Digital drawing, 2017.
The students drawing also responded to their contemporary lifestyles, in listening to American hip hop and rap music, and identifying with African American culture. Evident in Figures 4.42, 4.43 and 4.44 is the influence of rap, and its global reach. These expressions reflect and identify their associations to Indigenous or Black communities worldwide, and reflect the role African American music and culture has had on their identities in Ntaria.
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Figure 4.42: Example 6, Daryl Malbunka. Digital drawing, 2017. Daryl draws on the phrase from N.W.A's album, ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ which depicted the gangster lifestyle on the streets in Southern Los Angeles. Yet it reflects his associations to his homeland, the outstation of Kuprilya and his love of breaking in wild horses. The digital drawing is additionally embedded with imagery and colour palette of his favourite AFL team, Port Adelaide. It is a layered creation of contemporary identity, influenced by the ancestral, the local and the global.
NTARIA
Figure 4.43: Example 7, Ashley Lankin. Digital drawing, 2017. The students identify with the expressions and struggles of African Americans, recreating them within their Western Arrarnta life worlds. Figure 4.44:
155 Example 8, Latrelle Pareroultja. Digital drawing, 2017. Latrelle draws from clothing line Last Kings owned by LA rapper Tyga, reinterpreting a city scape with his initial LKP.
These digital drawings show how the students experiment with digital mediums and draw on global influences. They show us their lived realities as they grow up in a globally connected world. These expressions highlight the use of introduced tools as enabling spaces for them to assert their own individual style, influences, and ways of relating in the world. They are spaces free to explore, to integrate things important to them, revealing how they see themselves as globally engaged young adults.
We are the old and the new: Surface styles
The students identified that the iPad afforded a digital surface to experiment with new ways of drawing. Yet this new surface was often just a new layer to represent their ties to the ancestral. On the digital screen, the old mixed in with the new, as highlighted by Zenith Yamma:
I like it out bush. I like to go out to 8 Mile to do fishing and dreaming. But I also like looking at Google on the iPad and watching AFL. (Zenith Yamma)
The students responded to their contemporary lifestyles, while still maintaining connections to Country and culture. The iPad enabled students to draw upon a range visual inspiration, particularly through image searching on Google. Here, in these six digital drawings, the students position themselves within a broader national identity, firmly and proudly situating themselves as Aboriginal Australians, aware of the treatment of their people across the country. This is evident in the work of Nathaniel in Figure 4.45.
156
Figure 4.45: Example 1, Nathaniel Coultard. Digital drawing, 2018. Ready access to images on Google allowed students to integrate and assert their political identities by drawing on imagery about Aboriginal history across Australia—sourced through Google rather than through remembering and depicting stories told to them.
My design is of a man with a spear and a shield. He’s going for hunting. My idea is from the Google. I just get it off Google. I drew this because he is fighting with the white man. He is strong. He is fighting for his land. It’s important to tell this story because white man came and stole his land. He’s fighting for it back again. (Nathaniel Coultard)
Drawing from ‘Google’ to represent his Aboriginal identity is further reinforced by Noel Raggett, who highlights the mixing of old stories with new places of inspiration:
My Grandmother is a painter. They tell me stories. But also sometimes I copy stories from the TV – from NITV. Aboriginal stories about hunting and lizard eggs. (Noel Raggett)
While finding inspiration from online sources, the students still choose, and were proud to represent, their Aboriginal identities. This mixing was also evident in student’s combination of traditional iconography and landscapes with emblems of AFL teams (Figure 4.46) West Side hip hop motifs
157 (used in reference to Western Arrarnta rather than West Side) (Figures 4.47 & 4.48). These drawings show how the students integrate old knowledge with contemporary interests. Through this process, they also learn to integrate new shapes, ways of drawing and creating on the iPad—digitally mixing imagery of online content with digital shapes, lines, and patterns.
Figure 4.46: Example 2, Nathaniel Coultard. Digital drawing, 2018. This image depicts the AFL team mascot, the Western Arrarnta Bulldogs amongst a landscape of Mount Hermannsburg. It utilises the colours of the local AFL team, highlighting how place interacts with contemporary interest and concepts of identity. Figure 4.47: Example 3, Marques Young. Digital drawing, 2018. Marques reinterprets West Side iconography and repurposes it for a Western Arrarnta context.
158
Figure 4.48: Example 4, Marley Kantawarra. Digital drawing, 2017. Marley combines graphics of found objects, with drawings of bush foods, and contemporary iconography. The culmination is an exploration of what is important to Marley—his Country and his Western Arrarnta identity.
159
Figure 4.49: Example 5, Ashley Swan. Digital drawing, 2018. From the use of bold blocks of colour, and integration of the Aboriginal flag and AFL footballs, Ashley mixes old stories with new interests, of the sea and the desert. It is striking in its layout and configuration, combining elements not usually seen within Western Arrarnta creative expressions.
This story is about fishing at the seaside where my mother comes from and telling stories with family. Then when we come back to Ntaria, I play footy with the men. (Ashley Swan)
160 The students also expressed stories through diverse compositions and the inclusion of new types of imagery (Figure 4.49). These drawings reflect the dynamic nature of Aboriginal expression: that Aboriginal knowledge is living, comes from the real world and fits within the present. As Ashley expresses:
I can use design to tell the old stories, but also new ones. (Ashley Swan)
In Figure 4.50 we see a depiction of bush foods, but as Sasha tells us, she has experimented with style. The spirit of these works lies in their application of digital possibilities.
Figure 4.50: Example 6, Sasha Campbell. Digital drawing, 2018.
My design is of different bush tuckers around Ntaria. It’s beautiful Country. Tjaapa and Yirrampa are witchetty grubs and honey ants. And there’s two people sitting. We collect them on the weekends. Some things they are hard to get. For witchetty grubs you have to dig under the sand. Honey ants are important stories, because it’s about dreaming. I was inspired to do this design. I don’t know anyone else who has does it this way, this style. When I design I tell stories about my dreaming. (Sasha Campbell)
161 Within these digital drawings we are presented with ways of seeing Western Arrarnta culture, from the mixing of global cultures, to digital applications of colours, shapes, and layers. The digital drawings mix old stories with other interests, and also represent old stories in alternative ways. This mixing and blending represents the students’ lived realities, influenced by national and global culture, but also of family and Country. The digital medium enabled them to make decisions and have the space to explore outcomes away from the legacy of painting and pottery. They express who they are, in the now—acting as powerful statements on the current and potential future of Western Arrarnta visual expression.
4.2.4 Collective principles
The digital drawings represent the work of students over the course of the design workshops. The thematic groupings display the images according to what is important to know about them from a Western Arrarnta perspective. They highlight the underlying principles for the digital drawings were around talking story, sharing and connecting, and newness. The digital drawings were about communicating, about students’ knowledge of Country, culture, and family, but also of the present moment. The digital drawings show us the underlying principles of their visual outcomes, what was communicated and designed, exploring the students’ perceptions of communication design.
From the analysis of the drawings and their associated stories, the students’ expressions hold significant importance. While they have access to an ever-expanding range of sources for imagination and imagery, including television, books, online imagery, and social media, they still choose to draw Country. These depictions are drawn from memory. The iPad, although mobile, was not used ‘en plein air’, perched in front of Mt Hermannsburg. The student’s intimate links to Country are represented within their memory of the folds of the mountains, the hills, and the valleys.
One of the important considerations of looking at these digital drawings is their sense of ‘otherness’ to principles of Eurocentric design. The works assert their strength through their grounding in Country and identity. At first glance, the digital drawings and their accompanying stories may seem deceptively simple from a Eurocentric aesthetic or illustrative perspective. But on further analysis, the designs show the students agency, power, and politics. They evoke themes that demonstrate continuity with the past, the importance of relationships, while expressing their own views about contemporary Ntaria life. The students’ direct, plain speaking language accompanying their drawings lays bare an essential difference, of communication design as a way of communicating
162 culture and representation. The digital drawings presented above assert a distinct Western Arrarnta perception of digital drawing as part of communication design.
4.3 Imagining a Ntaria communication design process
Introduction: the five phases of communication design as identified by the participants
This section is focused on the students’ communication design process. Firstly, it is important to note that the Western Arrarnta words included to describe the students’ design process carry epistemologically complex understandings that cannot be fully comprehended by those outside Western Arrarnta culture and knowledge. Presented here are my experiential understandings based upon the perceptions shared with me by the students. Language support was provided by Western Arrarnta Teaching Aids within the classroom, including Jeremy Moketarinja and Melanie Inkamala, whose help in translation, expression, and understanding was invaluable. Additional language support was provided by David Roennfeldt, Western Arrarnta language teacher at Ntaria School and author of the Western Arrarnta Picture Dictionary (2006), published by IAD Press.
Here, process is defined as the steps taken by a person that results in the design of an artefact, which may be tangible (such as a new tool) or intangible (such as a new story or song). Data was collected within Stage 2 (design workshops) and Stage 3 (assessing value) of the research (see section 3.2 for a description of research stages) to explore the students’ process through interviews, card sorting methods, and a reflection survey. In these stages, students were invited to visually depict their process and to represent the relationships between each step. These students had participated in the program and completed numerous design tasks and outcomes, thus having gone through a design process multiple times. The semi-structured group interviews were firstly conducted, and asked seven individual students questions such as:
• Can you tell me a bit about the process you used to make your design?
• Where do your ideas on what to design come from?
• What steps do you take in making a design?
• What do you do first on the iPad? How do you know it’s finished?
163 The card sorting method gave greater detail to discussions. The words on the cards came from two sources: words heard throughout the design workshops and interviews, and words that described activities as they were observed during the drawing activities. Five students completed the card sorting activity pertaining to their design process. Figure 4.51 represents an example from the card sorting activities depicting a section of a student’s design process. The self-reflection survey invited students to visualise the steps involved in their design process which gave important direction to how their process is imagined and perceived within Western Arrarnta cultural practice. Ten students completed the self-reflection survey. Figure 4.52 represents an example from students’ reflection surveys.
Figure 4.51: Depiction of card sorting activity, exploring students’ design process
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Figure 4.52: Depiction of self-reflection survey, exploring students’ design process
The results of the interviews and card sorting methods are presented thematically below, rather than detailing the results of each method individually. The discussion here is how each of the five phases was implemented in the students’ communication design processes. Students emphasised different parts of the process, such that the same process may be followed in different ways. The phases were identified through the three rounds of the data analysis process, discussed in section 3.5. The second round of analysis, the group workshop, gave important direction to the students’ initial understanding of their process and importantly, allowed time to detail the Western Arrarnta language words used to express each phase. Here, students explored what these terms meant within the context of a design process and in turn, were able to give greater insights into the depiction and meaning of each phase.
The five phases that emerged as central to the students’ drawing activities are:
(1) Anma thinking time
(2) Arama to see
165 (3) Parnama to draw
(4) Mpaarama to make, build, do
(5) Marra good.
These phases are not meant as hard or rigid steps to follow, but group together students’ understanding of the fluid journey they undertook in completing a digital drawing. Sections 4.3.1 to 4.3.5 present the students’ imaginings of their process. These phases also point towards a larger process that is central to understanding the Ntaria young adults imagining of design, and give meaning and context to their digital drawings.
After each phase of the students’ design process is discussed, the overarching process is explored within section 4.3.6. This section details a holistic understanding of their relational process through the relations between steps. Design enacted processes of knowledge, as students connected and reflected on their own knowledge throughout the phases of thinking, seeing, drawing, making, and finishing.
4.3.1 Anma: thinking time. ‘That’s how I make it on my mind’
The students who participated in the interviews, card sorting activities and the survey pertaining to design process identified the concept of anma—a Western Arrarnta word that directly translate to
‘wait’—as the first important step in their design process. The students expressed this concept can be interpreted as waiting, giving space, waiting for the right time, being patient, and having time to think. While it could be perceived as a passive time where nothing is happening, it is often an active space of reflection and preparation.
The students explained how anma, or this waiting and thinking, is an important step that allows time for things to happen. Approaching a design activity with anma created a space for patience, consideration, to not feel pressured to start something straight away, but give the appropriate time to think about what they wanted to design, and to draw upon the stories and knowledge that was important to express through their digital drawings. In her research with Aboriginal teachers in
Central Australia, Lisa Hall (2006) describes anma in the context of allowing time for her participants to be ready to share their narratives:
166 It is a way of thinking about time not as sequential and linear, but as patterned, seasonal and emerging. It is not something that you plan for, but rather something that you pay attention to and allow to unfold. It is something that you meet with readiness only when the time is right. (2006, p. 124)
Within the context of design, this time was often around waiting for the students’ stories to emerge. To wait for their design to ‘make it on their mind’ to firm up and visualise their story. One student expressed how, for him, anma is enacted as a process of remembering and reinforcing knowledge.
Sitting around the fire. That’s how I make it on my mind
Here, knowledge and story are shared while sitting around the fire. The student explores how this time of sitting, listening, and learning is crucial to the design process. Anma was about giving time to remember stories, to draw on their knowledge, and give space to feel comfortable, so they have it right ‘in their mind’. It was about waiting for their knowledge to unfold, to give it space, and only when the time is right, to move forward with their idea for their digital drawings. During our interviews, four students expressed their first phase in the design process as thinking time:
Think about culture I think about my community Think about family Think first about dreaming
This time, to think and connect was further reinforced within the card sorting activity, with students placing cards such as ‘think of a story’, ‘think about my culture’, ‘think about Ntaria’, and ‘go outside to get ideas’ at the beginning of their process (See Figure 4.53). The concept of anma reveals there is no mark making or visual brainstorming happening within this phase—it is purely an internal process of waiting, thinking, connecting.
167
Figure 4.53: An example of the card sorting activity detailing thinking time at the beginning of the students’ design process
The idea of anma has been mentioned in the literature. For example, Yolngu teacher Yiŋiya Guyula demonstrated how stories are shared when the time is right, because ‘the land is talking to them, because their feelings and their knowledge is ready to be told’ (Guyula, 2008, cited in Christie et al., 2010, p. 72). Carnes (2011) suggests Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies are more circular ways of being in the world and require time for thinking, musing, and reflecting. Miriam Rose Ungenmerr highlights the importance of ‘inner deep listening and quiet still awareness—something like what you call contemplation’ (cited in Atkinson, 2002, p.16). Allowing time, which in turn is combined with remembering stories and building relationships, provided a solid foundation for the students to be comfortable in beginning their design process.
Carnes described how allowing room for contemplation, thinking, and conferring may be a challenging way of working, especially to those from a Eurocentric paradigm and familiar with a Western design process with its focus on concept development, action, and outcomes (Carnes 2011). Rose (2004) invites us to consider ‘alternatives to linear time… the time of the generations of living
168 things, including ecological time, synchronicities, intervals, patterns, and rhythms, all of which are quite legitimately understood as forms of time’ (p. 25). Importantly, she proposes the ‘possibilities of our present moment’ (Rose, 2004, p. 213), to allow time in the present moment, which teaches us new ways of working together, of which we can also begin to imagine a Ntaria process of design.
4.3.2 Arama: to see. What’s in my head is shaping up
The second phase of their design process was identified by the students as the Western Arrarnta concept of arama which directly translates as ‘to see.’ This was explained as a process of visualising the knowledge acquired though anma. Arama is an important part of students’ learning process within Western Arrarnta culture. To take their stories and knowledge and give them shape. One student expressed the notion of ‘seeing’ their stories as follows:
Copy it in our head
Arama can mean to look, to see. It acts as a continual process of learning knowledge, looking, and listening to then be able to create an idea, or copy the essence of the story or narrative within the mind. While anma gives time to think, arama is about applying this knowledge to a design outcome or digital drawing. Five students expressed this phase of their process as follows:
Think about what to draw What’s in my head is shaping up Then I get it. I know what to draw I work it on my mind Think about what we are doing
Within the card sorting tasks, students selected cards with ‘I know what I want to design’ and ‘think about my design and the story it tells’ as core parts of the arama phase. It reveals a process of continued thinking, a circular notion or informing and reinforming ideas through repetition and engagement with inner knowledge. It brings the stories of the past into the present moment and into a design idea. It takes the cultural and ancestral and begins to see it within the context of a digital drawing. Arama enables a way of relating for the students, to reproduce knowledge through the visual, to connect thinking with drawing.
169 4.3.3 Parnama: to draw. Getting it from our head to the screen
The students identified the third phase in their process by the Western Arrarnta word parnama, which translates as ‘to paint or draw’. It has been described as including interpretations of to paint on, build (house), or decorate (to put paint, etc. on something). It is important to differentiate this wording from mparrkaka intalhintja which refers to ceremonial designs, body paint, and designs on the ground. With parnama, the process of drawing or painting is not a sacred one, as opposed to its cultural and spiritual counterpart. The students expressed this phase was focused on transitioning their thinking and ideas to the active ‘doing’ of drawing. As one student explains:
Draw the design from our head
Here, the physical act of drawing is first mentioned in the students’ design process. The students start their drawing with firm ideas of their outcome and do not go through an iterative process of sketching on paper. The generation of their drawings is an internalised process and does not require a physical ‘mapping out’ or an initial drawing ‘ideas’ stage. Their stories are made ‘on their mind’ and until they are ready, and strong in their knowledge, do they attempt to visualise this through their drawings. Two students expressed this phase of their process as follows:
Draw it on paper I draw paper first
This was reinforced within the card sorting activity, as students selected cards such as ‘draw my idea on paper’, ‘draw my design on paper’, ‘colour my design on paper, ‘finish my design on paper.’ An example of the card sorting data, recorded through photographically documenting the students’ sorted cards is represented within Figure 4.54.
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Figure 4.54: Example of card sorting activity, and the depiction of drawing within the process, completed by one of the students
Within this phase the students also selected cards such as ‘look for design inspiration’, ‘look at pictures on the internet’ and ‘think of ideas while drawing’. This suggests they were also looking at ideas on how to recreate or transition their pencil ideas to a digital medium—looking perhaps at what was possible through working on the iPad, or integrating new ideas onto the digital surface. The majority started their drawings on paper first, before transitioning to working on the iPad. This was particularly evident through the early weeks of the design workshops, as students were learning and obtaining digital drawing skills.
4.3.4 Mpaarama: to make and do. Make it on the iPad
The students identified a fourth phase of their process, expressed by the Western Arrarnta concept of mpaarama, which translates as ‘to make or do.’ This active phase focused on the making of not just the digital drawings, but the outcomes of these illustrations, in which the students printed their work onto greeting cards and apparel. While the outcomes of the design workshops are detailed within Chapter 5, here is it important to understanding the student concept of ‘making’ related to the creation of digital drawings on the iPad but also the making of objects that featured their digital drawings. While some students described this phase as to:
171
Make and colour on iPad
Making a design for the students, also included its making outside the screen and creating physical artefacts, such as they were ‘making’ an item, which involved both its creation on the screen and its tangible outcome. Students’ also described this phase as twofold, to first:
Draw it on the iPad and then:
Get the design – what we made Send it to the printers Wait for printing
While the students were not involved in the physical making of artefacts, they designed objects for specific printed outcomes, such as stationery and apparel. For the students, this ‘making’ phase, or mpaarama is more holistic. It includes not just the production of their digital drawing, but also the outsourcing of the printing and production to end up with a physical item—the culmination of their design.
The students’ digital manifestations were evident within the card sorting process, as they selected and grouped cards such as: ‘draw on the iPad’, ‘use the pencil to draw on the iPad’, ‘colour my design on the iPad’. Through the card sorting activity, students also included cards relating to the use of digital tools, and the feelings and thoughts they had while going through the making process. These included: ‘leave it for a bit and work on it later’, ‘it’s too hard I give up’, ‘feel shame about my design’, ‘play around on the iPad’, ‘erase it and start again’. Their frustrations within this phase are evident, as the students learnt to create their drawing with digital tools and techniques—having to work out how to create the effect they were after.
Their learning embedded within the process is also evident in their card selection, as they also included cards referring to: ‘re-do some bits to make it better’, ‘change the colours’, ‘work on my design a bit more’, ‘spend more time and make my design better’ and ‘make my drawing neater on the iPad’. Their selections highlight the process of experimenting, amending, re-doing, and applying digital tools to make and build their stories and design on a digital surface. The journey of the digital drawings into tangible outcomes was reflected in their card sorting activities by cards such as ‘send
172 my design to the printers’. Once the student had either finished their design on the iPad, or had received a physical item, the final phase of their design process was evident.
4.3.5 Marra: good. Feeling good and feeling proud
The final phase of the Ntaria design process the students identified as marra, a Western Arrarnta term which directly translates as ‘good.’ Marra is reflected by the students as encompassing their responses of feeling good in finishing a task, and also that their designs looked good—that they were proud in both their ability to complete their design and its visual or narrative quality. The students identified different components to feeling good. The first was around being able to share their design, and for others to confirm their work as marra. This was a relational process. The students described the showing of their work as to:
Tell stories about my design
The sharing of their work, which in turn promoted feelings of marra was reflected in the card sorting activity by students selecting and grouping cards such as ‘ask my friend what they think of my design’, ‘ask my family what they think of my design’, and ‘show my friends and family what I have made’. This was also made evident, as the students were often greeted by smiles, nods, and comments of ‘marra, good one’ by visiting family and community to the classroom. Internal feelings of marra were another component, reflected by the students as the final stage of their design process, which four students described as:
Finish and feel good Feel good and feel proud Feel good Feel proud
Their feelings were further reflected though their selections in the card sorting activity, finishing their process with cards including: ‘feel proud of my design’, and ‘feel happy with my work’. Some of the students then selected ‘make another design’ as the culmination of their process, perhaps spurred on by their feelings of pride in their work, and the support of family and community.
The final stage of the students’ design process suggests that finishing a digital drawing became a great source of pride for the students. Here both the process and outcomes brought pride and
173 feelings of being valued. It also brought feelings of marra by building spiritual knowledge, evident through the prior phases of anma and arama – in the thinking, regeneration, visualising, and sharing of stories through drawing. The process also created a space within which students could feel pride when their teachers and families could recognise their learning and contribution to carrying on family and community stories and knowledge. The students also identified the feelings of marra were embedded through each phase of the design process, that they felt good about going through the process, ensuring they felt good and happy throughout. The five phases of the students’ process are now looked at holistically, drawing on the students’ visualisations of their design process and their accompanying explanations.
4.3.6 Collective imaginings
While each of the phases within the students’ design process is important to explore, it is also worth examining the students’ imaginings of the process as a whole, and how they visually depict and explain its structure. Data on the students’ overarching process was collected through a self- reflection survey in which they were invited to draw their design process from start to finish, and then explain what they had drawn. The written descriptions accompanying the drawings are in response to the students being asked to ‘explain your design process’ or to provide an understanding of what they have drawn. This enabled the links and relationships between each phase of their process to be explored, further supporting an understanding of how a design process fits within Western Arrarnta cultural and spiritual practice. Here their drawings of their design process are presented.
The majority of students’ depicted their design process as a linear structure. In Figure 4.55 the student draws upon a cloud analogy, as their ideas and drawing take shape.
Figure 4.55: A student’s imagining of their design process
What is in my head is starting to shape up—it’s like a cloud, this kind of shape
174 Similarly, in Figure 4.56, the process follows a linear fashion where the overall thought process is represented with peaks representing the physical act of digitally drawing and the hard work required in getting it ‘neat.’ The peaks get progressively higher as the student completes their digital drawing to their desired finished aesthetic.
Figure 4.56: One student’s imagining of their design process
Thinking. To do what kind of design. I need to try hard to do it neat and perfect—those are the spikes. How I’m going to do the design good. It’s getting bigger because I am getting there.
The students’ linear depictions, are also presented in a variety of conceptual ways, highlighting the bigger process of designing and its relation to drawing on knowledge, and sharing and passing it on to the next person. In Figure 4.57 an intergenerational knowledge transfer process is depicted as a student’s design process. Their depiction presents a more holistic understanding of how they perceive the design process and how it relates to a Western Arrarnta social world. The design process is presented as learning family stories while growing up, then sharing that cultural knowledge. Design is represented here as just one way of sharing and passing on these important stories, and reflects the underlying principles of the students’ drawings as talking story, and sharing and connecting.
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Figure 4.57: A student’s imagining of their design process
Family stories. Growing up. It’s about sharing the culture to the next person.
Iconographic depictions were also drawn by students to represent their design process. The design process depicted in Figure 4.58 functions as a series of connecting and growing concentric circles. In Western Arrarnta iconography, the concentric circle often represents an important place. Displayed here is the reinforcement of cultural knowledge through the act of designing. As the student continues to think of their idea, enabled through the act of the design process, their design gets better as they cement their knowledge within a visual format. The design therefore gets better by being able to enact the idea, story or knowledge.
Figure 4.58: One student’s imagining of their design process
Ideas get strong. My design gets better.
In contrast to the students’ linear depictions, they also drew upon iconographic forms to represent their design process. In these depictions we see representations of process as entrenched within storytelling practices, and the particular importance of anma (phase 1) and arama (phase 2). Figures
4.59 and 4.60 both depict people sitting around a fire, shown through the use of iconography (U-
176 shape as person sitting, with accompanying tools such as a spear, shield, and digging stick). These representations of process depict and locate a place where ideation occurs for these students—sitting next to the fire. Here, around the fire, students think about culture, share stories, listen, learn, and transfer knowledge. It is a place of cultural and spiritual importance. It instils a sense of their design process as enacting this time and transforming this thinking into a visual form.
Figure 4.59: A student’s imagining of their design process
Sitting next to the fire thinking. I’m always thinking when I’m designing. Thinking about culture.
Figure 4.60: A student’s imagining of their design process
177 Sitting round the fire. That’s how I make it on my mind.
Collectively these drawings allow us to see what a Ntaria design process looks like. It adds a crucial component to exploring how Western Arrarnta young adults see and perceive design. The thinking components of their process are particularly strong, as is a sense of connecting this thinking, and thus the thinking process to cultural and spiritual realms. The physical process of drawing, from analogue to digital, or to printed outcome is rarely depicted. It highlights the importance of their internal thought process, as students connect to and with the stories and knowledge told to them from family. Here we see how a design process is related to the underlying principles within the students’ drawings, embedded within a process of relational discovery that promotes interconnectedness and contributes to the identity of the participants.
4.3.7 Conclusion
The way the students imagine their process, and how they describe it, enables greater understanding of how the young adults imagine design and its meaning in Ntaria. Revealed here is how design acts as a relational process. Importantly, it reveals a distinct Western Arrarnta process of design, offering new insights into how design can be imagined within cultural and spiritual practice.
The students’ imaginings of a Ntaria design process provide a distinct cultural perspective. It presents a design process as a form of relational reflection, a coming to, and connection with knowledge. It is seen as an act of finding one’s design in Country, family or culture, and through an internal process of thinking and connecting, giving it form. The Ntaria design process positions design as a relational practice. These internal, relational elements are repeatedly emphasised, from the interviews, card sorting tasks, and drawings of process. The initial stages of ideation hold significant importance to the students. The design process also holds significant importance outside of the creation of digital drawings, or printed outcomes. The students express how this process is also about the transfer of knowledge, of ‘passing things on’ and ‘sharing culture’. The final phase of marra further emphasises the importance of this sharing, in feeling good and proud in both their aesthetic accomplishments, and their place in the continuance of their stories and knowledge. Their design outcomes cement their place as important within the social structure of family and community, and with it a sense of pride.
178 The process reveals the way design reaffirms and reconstructs the ancestral, but also enables the new and every day. ‘Designing’ became a quiet process of affirmation for the young adults. An affirmation of identity. Of both the past and the present moment. This process also gave students control over what they drew, feeling comfortable with their selection of subject matter or narrative, and how they engaged in the classroom activities. While initially I though students were unengaged, disinterested, or playing around in the classroom, understanding anma required the need to reframe the observation and to trust the students and the way they approached their digital drawings.
4.4 The meaning of design: Ntaria perspectives
Introduction
This section focuses on the meaning of design from the perspectives of participants. Here the students tell us what design means to them and how they make meaning from it. The Ntaria digital drawings revealed that the student’s designs should not be understood as a particular style, but by their underlying principles (section 4.2). Furthermore, the students’ design process emphasised a relational aspect, of connecting to knowledge and sharing this across generations (section 4.3). In this section, the students reveal how their design outcomes and processes fit within wider social, cultural, and relational systems—how design makes sense within a Western Arrarnta world. This enables an understanding of how the students experience and make meaning from design and how it can be imagined in Ntaria. The meaning of design for them is detailed within three core themes that emerged from the analysis process (see section 3.5 for description):
4.4.1 Design is a little bit different explores how design fits within the wider landscape of Ntaria.
Here the students express their perceptions of design, and how they created their meaning of it in relation to other Western Arrarnta visual practices.
4.4.2 Design is creating something new expresses how the students’ digital drawings enables
the creation of ‘something new’ allowing for contemporary expressions and different visual outcomes.
179 4.4.3 Design keeps our culture strong describes how design provides a platform to express
culture, knowledge and story through a digital medium. The meaning of design for the students explores how the students’ digital drawings are created, circulated, and valued in Ntaria.
Data was collected within the design workshops, and in conversations after the workshops. Within the conversations, students were prompted with questions such as, ‘what does design mean to you? ‘is design the same or different to art? ‘is designing things important to you? Within the self- reflection survey completed in Stage 3, students were again asked to reflect visually, and in writing on ‘what does design means to you?’ The meaning of design to the students is unpacked in three core themes below.
After the three components are discussed, an overarching interpretation of the meaning of design in Ntaria is considered in section 4.4.4. Here the students present their holistic perceptions of the meaning of design. The importance and implications of working with digital drawing and communication design in Ntaria are described by the students. The quotes presented here reveal how design outcomes and processes can fit within established social, cultural, and relational systems and work to regenerate strength in knowledge, story, and family.
The students’ exploration of the meaning of design is situated within the context of the design workshops. While the educational component is discussed in Chapter 5, it is important to mention the student’s concepts of meaning are framed or restricted by the content of these workshops, the focus on working with vector graphics predominantly within the Adobe Draw app, and on working on the iPad. While the students were able to engage in conversations around what they perceive the meaning of design is to them, their concepts of design, and thus its meaning, is limited by what was introduced to them. Presented here is what design meant to the students, following their involvement in the design workshop program. Here design specifically relates to their experiences in learning to draw in a digital way (see section 2.3.3)
4.4.1 Design is a little bit different: Design in relation to Western Arrarnta creative practice
The meaning of design for the students was identified and established in relation to other visual practices in Ntaria. The students were able to explain the meaning of design by expressing similarities and differences with painting and art. These comparisons enabled them to articulate what was different about design, and why these differences were important. In addition to
180 differences, similarities of design to establish visual practices were also of importance, particularly in relation to practices that enable the sharing of knowledge and keeping culture strong.
In our conversations around ‘what design means to you’, students described how they experience design as the same and having a similar meaning to other visual practices such as watercolour and acrylic painting and pottery. The similarities expressed by the students were in relation to using the same knowledge and also in terms of application. When asked ‘is design the same or different to art?’ two students expressed similarities:
The same. Because I’ve drawn it and I already know this knowledge and I know how to draw it.
It’s the same but on the computer. You use your hand.
The students see design as another medium to recreate their drawings and knowledge, the same as they might produce on an alternative surface. It situates design as a means of expressing cultural knowledge, as a kind of vessel that carries these stories and knowledge. The vessel of digital drawing is the same as any other, enabling the visualisation of knowledge and acting as a means to share stories. Here the students express the use of a hand or finger on an iPad screen as the only difference between digital drawing and other means of expression. This digital surface became a point of difference. The visual outcome acts as a layer floating on top of all the knowledge that lies beneath it. One student described the digital medium of digital drawing as:
Top painting. The painting part is art.
The student expressed how the idea and knowledge behind his digital drawing were the same (as they would express the same knowledge through another medium) but the surface ‘on top’ was different. What can be interpreted here is that conceptually, the intent and meaning of the student’s drawing would remain the same independent of the visual medium used. Here the knowledge underlying or ‘underneath’ the drawing is important. The medium, as a means of visualisation, becomes the ‘top part’, enabling this knowledge to take shape in a visual form. For the student, digital drawing also acts as this top layer, as would any other visual medium. Here, the meaning of design for the student lies in its surface, enabling an additional layer to represent Western Arrarnta knowledge.
181 From this interpretation, we see how ‘underneath’ the students’ surface drawings are representations of knowledge, some which have been passed down through the generations. Yolngu leader, scholar and educator Raymattja Marika illustrates how visualising this knowledge is understood as a meditative process, and one of communicating with knowledge and ancestors:
The paintings are not just pictures of things, but keepers of Yolngu knowledge. Our ancestors gave us the teachings and the designs together, and we still keep them. The symbolism behind the designs can be seen, by someone who knows, to be in all the little details and shapes and colours of the work of art. The deepest knowledge is abstract, we know it is there, but it cannot be put into words. It cannot be seen, but it is still there, and it contains teachings given by the ancestors, and still carries on down to the present, to contemporary Yolngu society. When old people paint, it is as if they are meditating; it is not just a man painting a design, but the design is a real meaningful and alive totem, which somehow communicates with the painter. When a person does a painting, it actually increases their knowledge of Yolngu law. There is communication going on. (Marika, 1990, cited in Michael et al., 2008, p. 7)
Marika illuminates the knowledge and rich communication underlying the visual surfaces of the student’s drawings. The students express through design, a relation to other mediums that this connection remains the same. It is just the surface of the iPad that is different. The ‘underneath’ is also referred to by Weatherall (2001) as the works ‘inside meaning’ emphasising the importance of designs as a defining element of communal identity and continuity of community:
In Aboriginal traditional art, ‘inside meaning’ encoded in some artwork, recognisable only to the initiated, records communal ritual and law. The whole community – not only particular designated ‘artists— is expected to reproduce traditional designs. Thus traditional designs are integral to every aspect of culture, communal life and identity; their embodiment in artwork in accordance with custom is considered essential to the maintenance of the community’s vitality and tradition. (p. 219)
In our conversations, students also spoke to the differences of design. They identified this difference largely in relation to technique, style and outcome. Learning to draw in a digital way presented new challenges to students, as they had to master new tools, techniques, and ways of creating on a digital surface. As one student expressed:
Art is familiar. Design is different and harder.
182 Learning digital drawing techniques in turn also enabled digital styles, with students often referring to this as ‘neat’, as opposed to the rough application of paint on a canvas. Working with vector graphics enabled the students to create straight lines, smooth curves, and blocks of colours, creating a kind of digital ‘neatness.’ It also enabled them to experience with different shapes and colours, that were easily accessed and created on the iPad within the Adobe Draw app. (See ‘vector graphics’ within terminology section for more detail on the digital drawing tool.) Working on a digital surface also required the students to learn new terms in relation to design, such as layers, opacity, line, thickness as well as digital terms such as file, save, export. All these elements were described by four students as what makes design different to other more familiar creative mediums:
Design is a little bit different. It’s a little bit neater. When you paint you use a brush, it’s a bit rough … Design is neat for me.
Art and design are different, because you can create stuff. The style looks different. Different colours.
With design you use different shapes and there are different names for things.
Art and design are different. Different shapes. Different names.
Learning the skills, names, and tools of digital drawing was a core part of students’ design workshops (to be further discussed in Chapter 5). These skills enabled students to explore the difference of digital practice and opportunities inherent in working and drawing digitally. It situates digital drawing as compatible with existing Western Arrarnta practices, but facilitated experimentation with drawing techniques, colours, styles, and shapes. For the students, design facilitated telling stories in a digital way, one that aligned with, but was a bit different to, past visual outcomes. It created a space for learning, for new decisions to be made and difference outcomes to be produced. As two students explain:
I make my designs on the iPad. I use the Apple pencil and I draw all my stories in a new way. On the screen. I use different brushes, colours, and shapes.
To me, design means drawing. It’s different from art. It looks a little bit different. Art is made of paint, and design is made from iPad.
These differences allow us to see how design relates to other Western Arrarnta practices and how the students make sense of the digital medium. The particular differences in design relate to the act of
183 drawing, how it ‘looks’, particularly in relation to the use of vector graphics and the neat lines, shapes, and colours so easily produced through the tools available within design software. While the students expressed how design is ‘different’ their responses to the meaning of design also related to the newness inherent within not just the digital surface, but the expressions and outcomes made possible through engaging with the digital medium.
4.4.2 Design is creating something new: Contemporary expressions and outcomes
The meaning of design for the students was identified by enabling different expressions and outcomes. As design was ‘different’ to other Western Arrarnta visual expressions, this difference also manifested in being able to ‘create something new.’ They identified that design for them, was about incorporating ideas, stories, and outcomes and being able to express their identities in contemporary ways. For them, design enabled autonomy over the stories they chose to depict and ways these were expressed within their digital drawings.
Some students expressed ‘newness’ as a means of drawing on and combining different sources of inspiration, particularly from Google image searches. As two students expressed:
I get ideas from the Google, looking up words like Aboriginal designs. From other people.
I like looking at Google on the iPad and watching AFL. I like making shirts. I want people to know about this place.
The students experimented with imagery and subject matter within their design outcomes, drawing on online sources and AFL culture to inform and inspire their work. Design for the students, was not just creating something new, but also about drawing on something new—utilising digital sources for ideas and incorporating them into Western Arrarnta visual expressions.
The majority expressed that design was about creating new outcomes. Their digital drawings were often designed to be printed onto specific items, such as apparel or stationery. The possibilities of printed outcomes from their digital drawings were a core component and advantage of working digitally. Three students expressed how these physical artefacts became a core component of their interpretations of designs meaning in Ntaria, as detailed below:
184 I like to do designs on the iPad. I like to make shirts or anything. It makes me feel proud. I can put my culture on my t-shirt.
It’s like creating something new.
We are learning. Getting new skills. We are designing shirts. Working on iPad.
This replicability, from the screen to a surface, enabled the students to expand their range of visual outcomes. These possibilities, of printed outcomes, were identified as creating something new. They moved from surfaces and outcomes as vehicles to express their culture. For students, the meaning of design, was about this creation, being able to tell their stories, not just on the screen of the iPad, but to take their digital drawing and imagine the possibilities of potential printed outcomes, which are further discussed in Chapter 5. Here the students could imagine where they wanted to see their designs, on what surfaces. It also promoted autonomy of subject matter as these new surface possibilities enabled them to incorporate diverse ideas, subject matter, and stories.
4.4.3 Design keeps our culture strong: Knowledge, story, and design
The students identified that design is an empowering process, and its meaning lies in its ability to keep culture strong. They make meaning through design by its ability to connect them to knowledge and story. The importance of story to knowledge and culture is reinforced by Allison Page (2012):
The story of our designs and how they are created is also important. How our designs and buildings come into being are just as important as the physical objects themselves. If every tree, rock and river has a story about its creation, then our design and building creation stories must be worthy of telling. (2012, p. 5)
Aboriginal artist Djambawa Marawili expresses a similar sentiment, connecting culture to visual representations:
The ancestors’ hearts are in the patterns and designs. All of our culture is related to our land, our songs, names, patterns and designs—our culture and our clan is enshrined in the paintings and the bark. Today the history and culture of the clans is embodied in art. Art is a profile of who we are— our identity, our land, our home. (Marawili, 2009, cited in Fletcher, 2009, p. 26)
185 Western Arrarnta visual expressions, from historical to contemporary, assist in connecting people with culture and heritage, and in supporting identity and wellbeing (Colquhoun & Dockery, 2012). The importance of visualising culture through design is expressed by one student:
It’s important for people to see our culture and to see the old stuff. It’s important for people to know our culture. To respect our culture. To respect us.
As well as visualising culture, three students expressed how design also allows for the sharing of stories, particularly dreaming stories, and stories of country:
It’s fun drawing and designing things. It’s special to me. Sharing my stories. It’s special because it’s about my dreaming. My dreaming stories are from my family. From my Grandmother and Grandfather.
I like design because I like drawing and drawing my country makes me feel good. It’s important to tell these stories.
My design tells stories of culture and bush tuckers. Things that are important to me. My designs are about culture. Dreaming. They are all from this place.
Two students also expressed that connecting to family, and drawing ideas from family members was important, that this regeneration and relational connection was a core part of how design has meaning for the students in Ntaria:
The things I like to do are the things that I draw. Coming up with ideas is my favourite part of the design classes. My ideas come from the ladies at the [Hermannsburg] Potters. When they talk about their stories.
My ideas come from my head. From my culture. Designing makes me feel good, because when I draw it, it looks just like what I want, what’s in my head.
The students also identified how design connected them to community and culture—that design provides a means to connect through culture. Two students described this connection as follows:
Design can connect you to community by showing you Country. By sharing your Country with other people. Through generations. By talking about the community. Design can act in the same way. Through culture.
186 Design can connect you to community and culture. By drawing Country. It is precious.
The students express how these connections make them feel strong in their culture. By being able to connect to and regenerate their knowledge of Country, community, and culture through digital drawing. They make meaning from design through these connections. The meaning of design in Ntaria was a way of expressing knowledge, for students to feel proud of their knowledge and to feel strong in being able to connect to it. This will be further discussed in Chapter 6.
4.4.4 Collective meaning
The narrative below accurately illustrates the collective conceptual understanding of the meaning of design in Ntaria. Meaning is generated through a combination of drawing, learning, communicating, and sharing. Expressed is a newness and difference enabled from working with digital tools and outcomes, but also of how design fits within established cultural practice and has value within the community. As one student expresses:
I like using the iPad because you can use your fingers or the Apple pen. When I think about design, t-shirts are different. To me they are design. Taking a picture and tracing it. I can use design to tell the old stories, but also new ones. It looks different to art. It’s a different surface. The lines look different. I like the way the lines look when I draw it with my finger on the iPad. With my hand it’s more natural. Design can fit into our culture. I feel proud making all this design work. I like designing. I like drawing and working on the laptops and working with technology and learning new skills. I want to get better so my lines look really neat. My ideas come from thinking. It just comes to me. I’d like to get a job and make money from design. (Latrelle Kantawarra)
Revealed here is a contextual meaning of design from a Western Arrarnta worldview. How design can generate meaning in Ntaria is specific to social, cultural, and relational understandings. The meaning of design is based on its relation to community specific values. The quote above suggests that design acts as a means of expressing the students’ experiences of being in the world and communicating their own ideas and values. For the students, design presented a medium in which they could meld old and new stories: to express their lived experiences of being a young adult in Ntaria.
This digital medium also allowed for the reproduction of knowledge through the visual. This further reinforces connections with the ancestral, with Country, family, and culture. Students connected and
187 continued to learn from culture, by thinking, visualising, drawing, and creating. As one student expressed within their self-reflection survey, they made meaning from design through:
Drawing pictures. Telling stories. Communicating culture.
In the cultural, social, and spiritual dimensions of Ntaria, the meaning of design lies in its ablility to visualise and pass on stories and knowledge. By applying this knowledge through the digital medium, they become part of a continued cycle, taking their place as keepers of knowledge, and by sharing their designs, becoming active participants in this process. Revealed here is how students came to grasp the difference of design, but were simultaneously able to embed it within established visual and cultural practices. While design was ‘different’ it was also able to affirm cultural identity, knowledge, and story.
4.5 Conclusion
The student’s digital drawings, their conceptualisation of a design process, and the meaning of design in Ntaria revealed how Western Arrarnta young adults imagine and make meaning from design. The connection of outcome, process, and meaning shows a relational and spiritual dimension to their perceptions of design. There are many similar themes across the underlying principles of the student’s digital drawings, their process and meaning in Ntaria.
Detailing the students’ first impressions before the workshop program began demonstrated that they had not used vector graphics or created digital drawings. Digital drawing was thus deliberately different from familiar mediums, such as watercolour painting and pottery. By moving away from known visual storytelling methods and media, participants were able to experiment with digital forms of self-representation. Using digital tools supported the expertise of young people as active consumers and producers of digital visual content. The digital drawings show the capacity of the students to control and manage their visual identities, and to support and strengthen their explorations of self.
Their digital drawings highlighted the underlying principles of talking story, sharing and connecting, and newness. The students identified how their digital drawings were about communicating their knowledge of Country, culture, and family, but also of the present moment. The digital medium enables students to explore and experiment with digital styles, stories, and inspiration. The digital drawings are powerful representations of the students’ knowledge and
188 connection to Western Arrarnta culture, family, and community. They highlight the power inherent in sharing cultural knowledge and the pride in connecting to and renewing these stories. These drawings are also powerful assertions of the student’s contemporary identities, as they show pride in their Aboriginality, agency over their futures, and their positionality in relation to global culture and representation.
These underlying principles were also reflected in the student’s imaginings of their design process. Their process was guided by underlying principles, ensuring a relation discovery, based in connecting to and sharing knowledge while contributing to the identity of the designer and wider community. The students identified five phases of the design process: anma, arama, parnama, mpaarama, and marra. Exposed here is a process of thinking, seeing, drawing, making, and feeling good in finishing. The students’ process highlighted a distinct cultural interpretation of doing design, and the importance of connecting to the spiritual and ancestral. The Ntaria design process acted as a means to describe the students’ processes of knowing as they often experienced or undertook a journey to find their design in their relationships to Country and culture. The design process was therefore an important self-reflective process, making their digital drawing intrinsically, as well as instrumentally valuable for their wellbeing and identity.
The students identified that the way they made meaning from design was also informed by the underlying meanings of their digital drawings and their design process. Here the students illustrate how design can fit within established Western Arrarnta social, cultural, and relational processes. The students detailed the simultaneous importance of design being new and different—allowing them to express their identities and contemporary influences. The affordance of digital drawing, with its ability to act as a medium to regenerate knowledge and story, acted as another vehicle to visualise and pass on this knowledge. How design has meaning in Ntaria also lies in the ability of digital drawing to tell stories. These stories are fundamental tools for learning and knowledge transfer. They also help to reinforce values, beliefs, and practices in Ntaria. These stories act to keep Western Arrarnta culture strong and having the ability to regenerate and reproduce these stories within a digital medium is how design can fit within established storytelling practices.
As discussed in section 2.1.1, Chapter 2, Indigenous perspectives of design need to be explored at a local, culturally distinct level. The student’s perceptions of design offer a perspective and reflect a situated Western Arrarnta process. Yet they also align with and support Aboriginal design perspectives more broadly, as a recreation of story and knowledge, and a process of reflective and
189 relation discovery. The digital drawings, process, and meaning revealed within this chapter are a reflection of the students’ values and social-relational-political world they live in. Their perceptions of design meld the power of the ancestral with the importance of the everyday and the globally connected realities of young adults living within an Aboriginal community. The combination of visual principles, process, and meaning ultimately serve to provide an understanding of how Western Arrarnta young adults imagine design.
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Interlude: Coming Back
Figure 4.61: Learning digital drawing in the classroom. Being there in Ntaria, and learning design together required sharing our knowledge. Only through spending time were we able to imagine design in Ntaria.
I came back to Ntaria in July 2017 on invitation from the community and Ntaria School. The students had sent me messages via Facebook—they had missed me and wanted to know when I was coming back. I was aware of how much I had changed. I was slower, more careful, and showed more affection to the students. I gave them time out when they needed it. I wasn’t frustrated anymore. I waited till the students were ready. I was patient.
As a result, the design workshop delivery at Ntaria School changed drastically. Teaching became more responsive, prioritising Aboriginal approaches to learning, and respecting the lived realities of the students. Learning activities were adjusted, allowing for more time to learn from each other, timelines were extended to allow for the cultural commitments that permeate Ntaria life, and outcomes became more student-led, giving more control to them and the ability to direct learning outcomes to things relevant in Ntaria. By waiting, listening, and learning, the design workshops were able to be reconceptualised, away from my own understandings and instead, to fit within Western Arrarnta ways of being, knowing, and doing.
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This slower rhythm of engagement supported the expansion of understanding and meaning making, and facilitated ‘seeing more’ within the collaborative teaching and learning space. This longer-term project allowed for more meaningful discoveries. As sociologist Patricia Leavy explains in relation to engagement with art-based research: ‘the prolonged engagement this process requires manifests the importance of complementing the relentless activity and pace of academia ... with spaces to linger … entail[ing] a different pace that is not about ‘being lazy’ but rather is dedicated to processing and incubation’ (2017, p. 657). This space highlighted that knowledge and methods have to be internalised, digested, and absorbed rather that remaining at information and procedural levels all too often presented in schools. For the students to digest working with these digital tools and what they meant, took time, from playing and experimenting, to creating purposeful digitally designed outcomes.
I also came back this time with family. My parents, grey nomads with their caravan, took a trip around Australia, and visited me on their way North. They attempted to celebrate my 30th birthday with me, in the way that parents do. Struggling to make a roast, they assembled what ingredients they could from the local Ntaria Shop and tried their best in the old rusty oven. As we ate our half- cooked potatoes, with no-alcohol present within the dry community, it was not quite the way I envisioned entering a new decade. But I was thankful they were there. It also made me realise that living in Ntaria required adapting to Ntaria ways of life. You couldn’t turn up and expect to carry on as you had in the city. It also made me aware of the importance of spending time, and being with family was something that spanned the cultural divide.
192 Chapter 5: Design Education in Ntaria 5.1 Introduction
This chapter details the design workshops conducted during Stage 2 of the research and the collaborative learning journey that unfolded. Revealed within this chapter are the students’ experiences and perceptions of the design workshops, in which they were introduced to digital drawing. As outlined in Chapter 3, the application of the 8-ways pedagogical framework informed the structure of communication design education in this study. Embedding communication design education within Aboriginal ways of learning enabled an iterative and reflexive approach to develop through teaching and learning together in Ntaria. Findings from the design workshops revealed the unsuitability of the initial Ntaria Design Education Framework (refer to section 3.3.2, Figure 3.3), and instead situated communication design education in Ntaria as ongoing dialogue with participants.
This chapter begins with section ‘5.2 The Ntaria School context’ providing a background for how the program was situated and aligned to the Indigenous Education Strategy and NT Department of Education learning priorities for remote schools (NT Board of Studies, 2018). Following this overview, the findings are presented within two areas, firstly pertaining to the students’ experiences of the design workshops, and secondly, revealing the approach to communication design education in Ntaria that developed iteratively throughout the workshops.
Section ‘5.3 Making shapes and drawing country’ presents the students’ experiences of being introduced to working with digital drawing tools. Ways of teaching and learning emerged through our time together both in and out of the classroom. The program adapted and melded to fit student priorities and Western Arrarnta social, cultural, and relational perspectives. The students’ experience of the education program was captured and collected through observations and interviews, supported by drafts of the students’ digital drawings, photographs of learning activities, and card sorting activities. The data provides an account that reflects the actual practices and perspectives of Western Arrarnta youth. Such an approach mirrors the international trend toward the
193 development of collaborative approaches to youth research (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Kral, 2011; McCarty & Wyman, 2009) and research in minority Indigenous contexts (Fluehr-Lobban, 2008).
The results in this section are based on the interpretation and analysis of the data that was collected throughout the design workshops, tracking the students’ learning, and their perceptions of design activities and outcomes. Consequently, this chapter contains many quotes and responses from conversations and card sorting activities with the students as well as photographs of their use of digital tools and mediums.
Section ‘5.4 Purta ngkarrama In dialogue together’ foregrounds observations and descriptions of what happened on the ground. Through learning design in Ntaria together, the initial education framework was re-evaluated. It was revealed that design education in Ntaria was based on a relational ‘dialogue’ and collaborative ‘questioning’. This section is presented as a dialogue between me and the participants, including observations and descriptions of specific design activities, and how the 8-ways framework worked to guide the teaching approach. This section is linked to the literature pertaining to communication design and Indigenous education, to support the themes that emerged within our conversations.
5.2 The Ntaria School context
The design workshops were conducted over three sessions across 2017 and 2018 (see thesis timeline in Figure 1.7, Chapter 1). They specifically focused on teaching digital drawing skills on iPads and computers using the Adobe range of apps, such as Adobe Draw, Adobe Capture, and Adobe Illustrator. The choice of Apple hardware was a deliberate one, as Ntaria School had a wealth of iPads and Apple laptops within the school, but teaching staff were unsure how to take advantage of them for student learning within the classroom. The Adobe range of design software is the industry standard for communication design and the iPad apps offered a visual learning environment that simplified many of the common digital drawing techniques within their desktop equivalents. The design workshops focused initially on introducing students to working within the Adobe Draw app on the iPad before moving to more advanced techniques within Adobe Illustrator on laptop computers.
Discussions with Ntaria School prior to commencement of the design workshops, situated the educational engagement within the Employment Pathways curriculum, part of the Indigenous Education Strategy 2015–2024 from the Northern Territory Department of Education (2015, p. 8). The
194 design workshops were initially scaffolded so that student design outcomes could be printed and sold as part of an enterprise activity that aligned with the learning project of running an enterprise and creating a pop-up shop. Therefore, learning outcomes of the design workshop were initially tied to creating a design-based enterprise by leveraging the students’ digital drawing skills to create items and marketing materials for a pop-up shop. The Pop-up Shop unit within the Employment Pathways program was aligned to the Culture, Country and Careers components of senior year education within the Northern Territory Department of Education. Here students learn about the world of work and within the Pop-up Shop unit, act as an enterprise or business operation for the duration of the project (NT Government, Department of Education, 2015). Potential outcomes from the design workshops were mapped to the learning outcomes of the Pop-up Shop unit. From this enterprise perspective, the first concepts of the Ntaria design studio were born, which were then further developed and re-evaluated over the course of the design workshop program—further detailed in the following section. The starting point for the design workshops was to create a communication design enterprise in which the students designed graphics to print onto a range of products with the aim of selling them as part of a pop-up shop.
Within the design workshops the students were firstly introduced to key communication design concepts, such as layering, stroke, opacity, replication, and shape creation—not possible with analogue forms of drawing. How they implemented these new possibilities into their work was analysed throughout the workshops as their skills and competencies working with the digital drawing tools developed. The learning activities were based on design tasks, including designing a logo, poster, signage, t-shirt graphic and tote bag graphic. These are all visual tasks based in communication as well as potential objects to be printed and sold as part of a student-run enterprise. Activities also enabled students to create their own design brief and produce their own outcomes, particularly as their skills developed throughout the program. Activities encouraged students to use a selection process in choosing colour, drawing technique, style, and design, which fostered critical thinking and active participation. There was no visual or process direction given to them, as the research was concerned with Western Arrarnta ways of working and their perceptions of design process, principles, and outcomes.
The initial context and planning with Ntaria School presented a starting point for the design workshop delivery. Yet delivery was not smooth or straightforward. It became an iterative and relational approach to communication design education grounded within the realities of community life, and Western Arrarnta cultural requirements. This meant the program became more reactive,
195 fluid, and flexible. It meant letting go of preconceived notions of timelines for completing work, structured learning activities, classroom behaviour, and teacher/student relations. It meant the design workshops needed to become embedded within the local, to allow for Western Arrarnta notions of time and space, and to fit within established cultural practices. Described below are the experiences of the students as we learned how to digitally draw in Ntaria together.
5.3 Making shapes and drawing Country
This section focuses on the students’ experiences of being introduced to digital drawing (particularly associated tools, mediums, and outcomes) as we learned how to design in Ntaria together. It documents what the students found easy to do, and what they found hard. It reveals the way students learned digital ways of drawing, and how they came to understand and utilise digital tools to express themselves. It shows the deep connectedness to Country as a place of learning. The student’s perceptions of their communication design education reveal how design enables student agency and voice, which in turn enables an understanding of the meaning and value of design education for young adults within Aboriginal communities.
The analysis of the students’ experiences within the design program is presented in four themes that include:
(1) ‘Learning new tools and techniques’ which presents the advantages of digital drawing as perceived by the students.
(2) ‘Experiences with vector graphics’ which examine the students’ preference for working with iPads.
(3) ‘Learning on Country’ which details our time spent out of the classroom and how this impacted on our learning.
(4) ‘Ntaria design outcomes’ which reveal student-led outcomes of the design workshops, how these were integrated into the overarching unit of the pop-up shop and enterprise development.
Data was collected across Stage 2— ‘Introducing digital drawing’—of the research to explore the students’ experiences as they became more comfortable and competent using digital drawing tools and creating design outcomes. Interviews and observations were completed throughout the duration
196 of the design workshops. Photographs were also taken to capture their use of the digital drawing tools and mediums, which acted to support and give context to the observations and interviews. Observations focused on their use of digital drawing tools and software on the iPad and laptops. Observations also tracked particularly ways of digital drawing and how students transitioned from hand drawings to drawing directly on screen. Interviews were conducted with students, both individually and within groups in unstructured and ad hoc ways, often asking students how they were finding the classroom activities and what they had learnt. Frequently included questions were What do you like about the design workshops? What is the easiest part? What is the hardest? What do you want to get better at? What things have you liked learning about design?
A card sorting activity was also devised to support students in their learning (see section 3.4.3, Chapter 3). From these activities (see Figure 5.1), the students’ progress in learning could be tracked and concepts they didn’t know or couldn’t master could be acknowledged, which in turn allowed more time and attention spent on those skills and activities.
Figure 5.1: Depiction of card sorting activity, exploring students learning within the design program. Students sorted cards into what actions, techniques or activities they found easy or hard to do. There was also space for students to express what actions or techniques they didn’t know or hadn’t yet learned.
The results of the data collection activities are described thematically below. Discussed is how each component of the students’ learning experiences added to understanding our collaborative journey, how technical skills acquisition melding with students’ own aspirations within the program, and how the program enabled a relational space to collaborate and learn together. Here students express
197 their joys and frustrations of learning a new digital tool, and how they were able to adapt to working within a digital medium.
5.3.1 Just press it with your hand: Learning new tools and techniques
The design workshops started by imagining the classroom as a design studio, with the students acting as designers. Initial activities focused on familiarising students with drawing on the iPad; creating simple shapes through Adobe Draw, selecting and changing colours, using and editing brushes, playing with layers, and incorporating photographs of objects and digitally tracing them through the Adobe Capture app. The students’ experiences of learning these new tools and techniques, and what they perceived as the advantages of drawing in a digital way are explored by their use of new tools, such as the Adobe Draw and Adobe Capture apps, drawing on the iPad, and using the Apple pencil. Also by learning new techniques, such as drawing shapes, tracing, and colouring. These tools and techniques are unpacked below.
Tools: Adobe Draw and Adobe Capture
An initial design activity was to create a logo for the students’ enterprise and subsequent pop-up shop. While early experimentation with the Adobe iPad apps was tied to the outcome of creating a logo, this task held little meaning for or relevance to the students. While they lacked association with the outcome, they were introduced through this activity to drawing on the Adobe Draw and Adobe Capture iPad apps.
In this early design task, 12 students collected leaves, flowers, and bushfoods, as well as drawing local symbols, animals, and plants by hand. They then photographed them on the iPad and created ‘vector’ shapes through the Abode Capture app. These vector shapes were then utilised within the Adobe Draw app as students experimented with the placement, size, colour, and placement while integrating shapes and tools accessible within the app. The students could then decide, use, and integrate both shapes of their own creation, as well as those provided by the Adobe software.
It became clear that the shapes in these programs were designed for a Eurocentric audience. For example, the French curve shapes are based on the idea that users understand drafting techniques, varying radii and the Euler spiral (clothoid curves). The design activities became progressively more complex and required students to create more detailed designs and embed other digital drawing
198 techniques within their work. The activities also required them to learn associated skills within the Adobe apps, such as saving and uploading files, creating new artboards, and naming their work.
The students perceived drawing within the Adobe Draw program as offering more options than drawing by hand. This included the availability of transparencies, layers, magnification, focus, and changes of sizes. The software also provided undo and redo functions, and thus freed students from the concern of making mistakes and errors while drawing. Additionally, the flexibility of the software was in terms of providing ready-made shapes, lines, and brushes in different sizes. Some students were also aware that the work produced in the apps is digital and thus it can be transferred to other devices and used again. Work could be saved and accessed at a later time, on another iPad.
Tools: the iPad
Drawing on the iPad was identified by the students as a core tool within the design workshops. This included both learning to draw on the screen and with the use of the Apple pencil. The students initially felt more comfortable drawing by hand and would first hand draw and colour their designs before moving to the digital format. Yet, as students learnt and became more comfortable with digital drawing, they were able to see the benefits in working digitally. As two students express:
The easiest part is drawing with your hand. Drawing on the iPad is hard. I want to get better at drawing by hand. I like working on the iPads. I like to draw on them. I like working with technology. I like it better than painting. (Student 1) Drawing on paper is easier. It’s easy to trace and draw on the iPad. Colouring is hard. The pencil is easier than your finger. (Student 2)
The students also identified drawing on the iPad as an important design skill. The majority of students’ initial drew first on paper, before digitally recreating it on an iPad. As four students express:
I did a drawing on paper using a pencil and then I took a photo using an iPad. (Student 3) I used Adobe Draw to put the colours I wanted onto it. (Student 4) I draw the stories first on paper and then I make them on the iPad. (Student 5) It’s easy to trace and draw on the iPad. (Student 6)
Learning to draw on the iPad took patience, practise, and an understanding of the technical means of drawing stokes, curves, and placing and colouring elements. Through classroom activities, they
199 became more adept at drawing within the Adobe Draw app and integrating more digital practices (rather than integrating their hand drawings to a digital screen). As these students were working for the first time in a digital medium, it presented opportunities for experimentation. They found inventive ways to use the technology, drawing on different techniques to create straight lines depending on their knowledge of the application (see Figure 5.2) or to achieve a traditional dot painting effect with digital drawing (see Figure 5.3).
Figure 5.2: Students draw a straight line on the iPad using different tools. Left: Student uses a ruler to draw a line with the Apple pencil. Right: Student uses the inbuilt digital ruler tool to draw a straight line on the iPad.
Figure 5.3: Students use different methods to create traditional dot drawings. Left: Student uses the Apple pencil directly onto the screen to create the dot effect. Right: Student traces dots from a drawing using his hands.
200 Tools: the Apple pencil
Students were also introduced to working with the Apple pencil through the design workshops. Most students found this an intuitive way to move from analogue to digital drawing, the Apple pencil allowing easier application of line, stroke, and shape. As one student expresses:
Using that pen. I like the pen. The pen is easier than drawing with your hand. You don’t draw over the drawing like you want. You don’t do mistakes. (Student 3)
The nature of the Apple pencil allowed students to leverage their basic knowledge, and through the design program continue to learn new ways of drawing through the Adobe Draw app. They built up their skills, from directly tracing an image on the iPad, to learning to apply digital strokes with the Apple pencil and integrate vector shapes. Through practise and repetition students built on their knowledge and experimented with other digital drawing forms, such as opacity, layering, and replication, all while continuing to improve their core digital drawing abilities.
Techniques: drawing shapes
The students identified learning to draw ‘shapes’ was an important skill within the design program. ‘Shapes’ were introduced to students through the Adobe Capture and Adobe Draw software. The ‘shapes’ provided within the apps (as opposed to ‘shapes’ of their own creation) are: circle, square, triangle, and line. Although these are seemingly ubiquitous, they were new to the Ntaria students. When drawing by hand, a perfect circle is almost impossible, while the square and triangle are not common shapes within traditional Western Desert visual lexicon, which often includes ‘U’ shapes, animal track marks, and wavy lines. The students had to learn how to apply these ‘shapes’ within the Adobe apps within a design and Western Arrarnta context. As one student expresses:
My favourite thing to do on the iPad is to make some shapes. (Student 7)
The card sorting activities reinforced the notion that creating shapes on the iPad was an intuitive process, with students grouping tasks such as creating a ‘shape’, circle and changing its colour, size and position as ‘easy’ after the first few weeks of the design workshops. Students were quick to master applying and manipulating these vector shapes within their designs. These shapes enabled new kinds of digital experiences as students no longer needed to hand draw and trace these elements, but could quickly insert them within their digital drawings. Through exploring the
201 possibilities with drawing digitally, styles emerged that took advantage of these new digital vector ‘shapes’ (Figure 5.4).
Students’ early experimentations of utilising new shapes within the Adobe Draw app, included perfect circles, squares, triangles, and vector traced ‘shapes’ from collected plants, hand drawings and photographed hand gestures (see Figure 5.4). The use of new ‘shapes’ are still largely embedded within Western Arrarnta iconography, such as the use of local plants and bushfoods. These digital drawings, completed within the first few weeks of the design workshops highlight how the students did not make a total visual departure when working with a new tool, but that new shapes, made possible from working within a digital medium, were integrated within an established cultural and visual language. As students spent more time working with vector shapes and digital brushes, they became aware of the opportunities present within the digital medium, such as the expanded choice of colour, block colouring, layering, and easy shape and colour manipulation.
Figure 5.4: Students’ early experimentations of utilising new shapes within the Adobe Draw app
202 Techniques: tracing and colouring
Tracing and colouring were also identified by the students as an important technique for learning digital drawing. Tracing occurred through taking a photo of the students’ hand drawing with the iPad and then embedding this image within the Adobe Draw app—students then traced over this photograph to create a digital drawing. Some students preferred to directly ‘trace’ their pencil drawings on the iPad, by photographing the image, creating a new layer and then directly re- creating it digitally. Others however utilised the potential of the technology to discover visual alternatives through the digital tool kit at hand.
As students progressed through the design education program, they began to adapt their initial hand drawings as they became aware of the benefits and efficiencies of the digital medium, such as digital block ‘colouring’ as opposed to colouring their drawings by hand, the ability to create mathematically exact shapes and smooth lines within the digital surface, and ease of reproducing elements. Their hand drawing then became much more simplified, often just a pencil layout to be created within the app, or students beginning their design directed on the iPad (Figure 5.5). Two students refer to ease of digital block colouring as:
[What] I like most about design is when you trace it first and then you press it and hold it. (Student 8) The hardest thing is drawing on the iPad. The easiest is colouring. (Student 2)
When pressing down on a defined area within the Adobe Draw artboard, it instantly fills with the selected colour. It is significantly faster than colouring by hand and also enabled the students to quickly and easily change colours within their digital drawings. The students’ hand drawings subsequently changed, as they sketched ideas to recreate within a distinct digital medium, rather than colouring a hand drawing.
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Figure 5.5: Students’ hand drawings changed and adapted once the possibilities of digital drawing become known and integrated into their practice. Colouring was no longer done by hand (A) and new shapes such as the triangle and square emerged and were integrated within an inherited language of traditional signs and symbols (B).
Benefits of digital drawing
Learning digital tools and techniques enabled problem solving and experimentation, of making new decisions, of thinking of different ways to draw and learning new technical skills. While the initial transition to digital drawing was at times frustrating and hard, the students came to learn and appreciate the benefits of digital drawing. For example, three students explain:
I love designing things because it’s fun. I need more practise. I like changing colours all the time on the iPad. I like learning new ways of drawing. (Student 9) With the iPad I can make anything. I can use all the colours. Colouring is quicker. (Student 10) I like drawing on the iPad because it’s quick. Quicker. You can finish it in a day. (Student 4)
The digital drawings that emerged from the workshops exemplified the existing visual skills of the students, particularly in applying their cultural knowledge to digital media, but also skills they learnt through the design workshops. The students’ experiences of the program reveal core skills were important in learning to draw within a digital medium and utilise the benefits of working with vectors.
204 The perceived advantages of digital drawing highlighted here are mediated by the preferences, knowledge, and attitudes of the individual students. While some students quickly picked up the techniques of digital drawing and associated skills of layering, multiplying, changing brushes and colours, erasing, and auto-colouring sections and shapes within their designs; there were students who continued to prefer to draw by hand, or work within a single layer and brush type. Considering the unique challenges, functions, advantages, and options available, the students became aware of the inherent power within working with digital tools and were able to choose how to apply it within their own timeframe for learning and within their own self-defined design outcomes.
5.3.2 It’s too hard: Experiences with vector graphics
Once the students completed their design activities on the iPad, they were introduced to working with digital drawing techniques on Apple laptops, using their fingers on the trackpad and working with Wacom tablets. However, transitioning students’ use of vectors through shapes and brushes on the iPad to working with the pen tool in Illustrator was perhaps an unrealistic expectation for those completely new to design and working digitally. Drawing with pencil/paper to Apple pencil/iPad was an intuitive step for most students, yet this did not translate when working with Wacom/laptop or trackpad/laptop. Working in a different design interface with new tools, such as the pen tool, created additional challenges.
The portability of the iPad allowed students to have the device flat on the desk, like a canvas, change orientation, hold it in their lap, change body position, move around the room, or change the distance from their face to the device. Designs could easily be shared by holding up the device or passing it around. Yet working on a computer was fixed, with the distance between trackpad or Wacom™ and screen so much greater than drawing directly on an iPad screen. As the students expressed, their preferences for learning digital drawing was through using the iPad, rather than learning to draw on the laptop using the trackpad, mouse, or Wacom tablet. One of the students described his experiences learning to digitally draw on the laptop as:
It’s harder than drawing with my finger. My fingers easy. But on the laptop, it’s hard. The lines look different. You have to practice a lot. (Student 11)
Students were quick to dismiss the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator for the more instant results they were seeing on the iPads. Although both were working in vectors, the more mathematical pen tool, based in curves, points, and paths requires considerable training to master. In addition, the pen tool
205 requires a process of points and paths to complete a shape. Starting and stopping midway through is tricky, especially without considerable technical knowledge and helpful shortcuts. For students, tracing an object with the pen tool was fraught with difficulties, in understanding the nature of curves, learning keyboard shortcuts, and being able to easily start and stop. If a mistake was made, it meant having to start again at the beginning. As two students express:
The hardest part is when you make mistakes. That’s the hardest part. Drawing that way. That’s hard. (Student 11) I like using the iPad because you can use your fingers or the Apple pen. Drawing the lines on the laptop is hard. (Student 12)
This was further expressed by students within the card sorting activities as they often grouped phrases such as ‘drawing on the laptop with the Wacom’, ‘drawing on the laptop’, and ‘saving designs on the laptop’ as hard. This was compared to the cards they often grouped as easy, such as ‘drawing with your finger’, ‘drawing with the Apple pencil’. The students were proud of the design work they were achieving on the iPad and with the transition to the pen tool, not producing as neat or instant results, their preference was to continue drawing on the iPad. As they couldn’t physically see or understand what the benefit of the pen tool was within this context, the general preference was to work with the familiarity of the iPads and work directly, finger to screen or with the aid of the Apple pencil.
The benefits of working with vectors are not solely fixed on working with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. The Adobe Draw and Adobe Capture apps allow users to work in a vector format without the need for the mathematically intensive use of the pen tool. Within the Ntaria context, the pen tool had little meaning or relevance compared with other digital drawing approaches. The students could achieve the results they wanted on the iPad surface, without the need for any more advanced techniques. The professionalism of the Illustrator programs on the laptop did not suit the context of use and as such, students maintained a preference to work on the iPads throughout the workshop delivery.
Revealed here is the students’ preference to work directly on an iPad screen, rather than utilise a Wacom tablet, track-pad, or mouse and laptop. Students preferred drawing in a way where the results were instantly visible, such as drawing directly on an iPad screen. The structure and format of working with the pen tool significantly delayed this instantaneous nature of shape creation, and required numerous steps and a complex process. The iPad offered more understandable benefits and
206 a simpler technique for students. Working with vector graphics through the iPad enabled students to feel encouraged and satisfied with their outcomes. There was more instant gratification in achieving digital outcomes. The simple features of digital drawing through the iPad are a starting point for students to continue to learn more advanced techniques and skills. As the senior students may soon leave or graduate from Ntaria School, the introduction of digital drawing on the iPad was a first step in their communication design education. The Ntaria students may choose to further their training and skills, moving beyond the ‘easyiness’ of the iPad.
5.3.3 Let’s go fishing: Learning on Country
The design workshops were developed in an organic, explorative, and collaborative fashion. As students were introduced to working with digital drawing, design activities drew on their local knowledge and storytelling practices. As detailed in Chapter 4, students told stories with their drawings, and shared knowledge of culture, Country, and community. The on Country nature of the program meant workshops were often taken out of the classroom. Bushfoods, for example, were photographed and traced on the iPad, or simply the landscape for creative inspiration and colour swatches. This also enabled time to be on Country, to share stories and local knowledge. Also, for me to learn what was important to them and give context to their stories. This was additionally supported by the mobile nature of the technology, allowing students to integrate place, story, culture, and knowledge into their design tasks (see Figure 5.6).
207
Figure 5.6: Design workshops in Ntaria, sharing stories and local knowledge, clockwise from top left: collecting bushfoods, leaves and seeds to use as design inspiration; walking on Country to rock engraving site to tell stories; collecting bush bananas, a local bush food.
These adventures reinforced the importance of learning through situated practice (Edmonds et al., 2016), and this resonated with the students’ assertion that seeing and doing something through direct experience and observation is essential for reinforcing culture and learning design. This situated approach to learning also reflects the overall purpose of Indigenous education, which is to create capable, confident members of society, as described by Marika-Mununggiritj (Yolngu) (1995):
Yolngu education is not about young Aboriginal people following their ancestors like robots. And Yolngu education is not about young people learning to do just what they feel like. Yolngu education is learning to love and understand our homeland and the ancestors who have provided it for us, so as to create a life for ourselves reworking the truths we have learned from the land and from the Elders, into a celebration of who we are and where we are in the modern world. (p. 61)
208 Learning design on Country was directed at assisting the Ntaria students in developing skills that contribute to communication through images and enabling them to acquire knowledge, experiences, skills, and techniques for confidently creating and distributing visual material about themselves— now and in future. Locally informed situated learning also worked to contextualise digital drawing as a storytelling and sharing process while supporting the digital skills of participants.
Here, the students become the experts of their Country, story, and culture. Being able to share the things important to them, to spend time on Country, and share its stories. These trips also focused attention away from the researcher/design educator as ‘expert’. The trips often happened in the afternoon, when students got frustrated with the technical components of digital drawing, when mistakes were made, or when they got tired of being in a classroom. As students often drew stories of Country and told stories of collecting bush tucker, of hunting and fishing, it then felt natural for the students to ‘show’ and ‘share’ these practices.
Learning to digitally draw also then incorporated enacting the stories told on country and being able to recreate this knowledge on the screen. From knowing the waterholes to fish for boney brim, to visiting important sites, to playing footy, and collecting langwa and bush honey; they shared their stories and taught the relevance of their design by engaging in learning both on and off the screen, in and out of the classroom (see Figure 5.7). They effectively showed the importance of their work by sharing and enacting the knowledge that lied beneath their designs.
209
Figure 5.7: On Country learning. Spending time finding waterholes, going fishing, and playing footy on Ntaria country.
210 5.3.4 I can put my culture on my t-shirt: Ntaria design outcomes
The design activities set for students within the design workshops were focused on developing outcomes that could then be produced into objects for a pop-up shop. The students applied their digital drawing skills to design graphics that could be printed for a range of outcomes. Initially ideas for printable outcomes were pre-defined, but it became clear as the program evolved that design outcomes and related design tasks in the classroom needed to have meaning and relevance within a Western Arrarnta world. Outcomes such as posters and logos held little meaning in Ntaria as the students did not see the relevance in creating such materials. There were few visible examples of logos and posters within the Ntaria community and the students couldn’t connect to the purpose or value in producing such design outcomes. Instead, the workshop design tasks adapted to the context of Ntaria, the students’ aspirations, and outcomes that made sense to them, and had value, relevance, and purpose within their community.
Students were asked what things they would like to ‘make’ with their digital drawings, which then informed the classroom tasks with students creating designs for a specific outcome of their choosing. Templates were developed so students could hand draw their designs or work directly off the same template on the iPad (see Figure 5.8). In working towards a printable outcome they were able to visualise and place their digital drawing within a Western Arrarnta context and work towards outcomes that could be realised off the screen. Student engagement increased dramatically when the design outcomes changed into those that made sense within a Ntaria context. Client: Project:
FRONT BACK Figure 5.8: Templates used within classroom activities
211 Upon completion, the students’ digital drawings were printed and displayed in the classroom. Students who completed their digital drawings, attended and achieved within the subject and approved by the Ntaria School teaching staff, were rewarded with their work being printed onto a range of items. Firstly, greeting cards were produced and printed locally (see Figure 5.9). These cards were initially shared with family and kept as items to be sold within the students’ future pop- up shop.
Figure 5.9: A selection of printed greeting cards. These feature many of the digital drawings presented within Chapter 4. Associated descriptions and stories behind student designs are featured on the back of the cards.
However, the most popular outcome was in the form of designing graphics to be digitally printed onto t-shirts. As three students express:
You can make shirts. You can do your own designs. (Student 2) I like to make shirts and draw some animals. (Student 3) I like to do designs on the iPad. I like to make shirts or anything. It makes me feel proud. I can put my culture on my t-shirt. (Student 7)
It was clear the t-shirt outcomes had social currency with Ntaria and the students were keen to produce designs that could be printed onto apparel. These fashionable outcomes also enabled students to express themselves within current youth mediums. The medium of the t-shirt enabled
212 them to experiment with both traditional and contemporary influences, symbols, and styles. Some students worked on the iPads through templates to create specific outcomes—the form of the outcome guiding their design work. Others worked within the artboard screen of the iPad—being able to visualise their design on a variety of outcomes. The printed outcomes (see Figure 5.10) show the students representing themselves, their identities, contemporary influences, and their lived experiences. There was an overarching sense of joy in seeing the printed outcomes as tangible forms, and also as physical representations of their stories of knowledge, Country, culture, and self.
213
Figure 5.10: Students modelling t-shirts. Some students are wearing their own designs, while others are modelling their classmates work. An exciting day in getting merchandise back from the printers, and their designs could now be seen and worn.
214
Figure 5.11: Students modelling their own t-shirt designs
215 Through the wearable format of the t-shirt, the students were able to express their identities while creating something they were proud to wear. Seeing the tangible results of their digital drawing skills also worked to motivate the students and to be able to place their learning and skill development of digital drawing into context—seeing how the workshop activities were useful and could have social and cultural currency.
The students’ design skills and engagement within the classroom also improved after the digital printing of their designs. They were now able to see the benefits of working within a digital medium and were therefore more inclined to spend more time, experiment more, and create more detailed and ‘neat’ design work. Knowing and seeing what outcomes were possible from engaging with digital drawing further engaged them in the specific skills of design. Experimenting with different t- shirt colours on the iPad worked to cement design skills such as layering, block colouring, and size and shape manipulation—students engaged in mastering new skills that they could then apply to their t-shirt designs. By producing outcomes they understood and valued worked to establish learning activities within a Ntaria context, and towards the students’ own aspirations for the design program.
The students also expressed a desire to create other design outcomes through the educational program. As five students express:
I’d like to make a hat. And shoes. (Student 9) We could make [AFL] jerseys (Student 12) I want to design my own AFL boots (Student 5) I’d like to print a phone cover. (Student 6) Football. Things that we wear. (Student 1)
The digitally printed outcomes were restricted in terms of what could be produced locally as well as budget constraints. Yet seeing the possibilities of digitally printed outcomes worked to give context to and motivate the students to continue to participate, learn, and experiment.
Drawing in a digital way and working to digitally print outcomes created the freedom for the Ntaria young adults to express themselves in their own, locally relevant way. These outcomes worked to empower the Ntaria students as designers of their own solutions.
216 5.3.5 Overarching perceptions
The students’ experience of the design program reveals how they came to learn and perceive communication design education with the school context. Foregrounded is how design tools and education produced new kinds of experiences and knowledge that in turn lay the foundations for the connections made between culture, Country, and design.
The advantages of digital drawing provide multiple modes of communication and representation for the students. They were choosing to participate because these cultural production roles are in the domains of knowledge that matter to them—culture, Country, community, and new technologies. In addition, they are merging elements of Western Arrarnta visual culture with global youth culture, thus forging and expressing new cultural perspectives, innovations, and identities. These experiences are allowing the Ntaria young adults who participated in this study to visualise themselves in positive ways for their own futures.
5.4 Purta ngkarrama: In dialogue together
This section details the teaching and learning approach developed through ongoing dialogue with the students throughout Stage 2 of the research. It presents a re-evaluation of the initial Ntaria Design Education Framework (see section 3.3.2 for an overview of the early framework) to provide a more reflexive, relational, and collaborative approach to communication design education within Ntaria School. The findings, which emerged through our active engagement in the design workshops present a more dynamic and fluid approach to questioning and making something in dialogue together as a basis for design education. Our dialogue was about understanding communication design education in Ntaria. Here, Western Arrarnta concepts of purta ngkarrama, of people talking together in dialogue, and purta kaltjerrama, of people learning together, are explored as a way of approaching the teaching and learning of design.
In Western Arrarnta language, abstract English words such as ‘framework’, ‘model’ or ‘program’ have little meaning or direct translation. This became apparent throughout our iterative learning journey and involved the embedding of Western Arrarnta ways of learning and doing. As such, a more dynamic and active approach emerged, one that had meaning within language and cultural understandings. Presented here is how purta ngkarrama, or our collaborative dialogue, created the opportunity to learn design in Ntaria together.
217 The dialogues presented here detail an approach to design learning that privileges Western Arrarnta knowledges and ways of learning. This dialogue is intended to represent the interconnectedness and relatedness of the teaching and learning of design, and how this interplayed with the application of the 8-ways approach. Through coming to Aboriginal perspectives of learning and applying them within the classroom it became apparent the elements of 8-ways were not separate elements, to be applied individually, but connected parts. Yunkaporta asserts that the 8-ways framework is not a collection of arbitrary learning styles, but the pedagogies are interrelated (2009, p. 47). This understanding was only realised through applying the approach within the design workshops. Therefore, the eight elements of the framework—story sharing, community links, deconstruct reconstruct, non-linear, land links, symbols and images, non-verbal, and learning maps (see Figure 2.1, section 2.4.1, Chapter 2)—are intertwined within the dialogue below, not evaluated as separate elements. The elements are highlighted in bold.
Our dialogue in ‘learning together’ is focused on strengthening relations to Country and incorporates strengthening the identity of the students while rethinking the roles of design educators within these relations. This dialogue captures our learning journey. It reveals how students bring their own knowledge and engage in a collaborative design learning experience together with design educators. It situates communication design education within the real-life experiences of the students. The dialogue that emerged is combined with available literature, discussing the relations between published resources, and highlighting how current approaches underestimate the role of Indigenous students within collaborative learning.
The findings from our dialogue are grouped into four thematic areas:
(1) In dialogue with Country
(2) In dialogue with the Ntaria community
(3) In dialogue with the students
(4) In dialogue with the design educator.
5.4.1 In dialogue with Country
The dialogue around learning to design in Ntaria together begins with centring Country. This was the most fundamental difference in approaching communication design education in Ntaria. Is it not
218 ‘user-centred’ or ‘human-centred’ but centred on how things relate to, and are informed by Country. Centring Country allowed for a reorientation of communication design education to focus on situated, contextualised learning and grounding activities within students’ local environment, social relationships, and cultural knowledge. This was enacted in various ways through the design workshops. The pedagogical approaches, design activities, and design process development all placed particular emphasis on Country. Centring Country within Aboriginal perspectives of design is expressed by Norm Sheehan as ‘on country design’ (2018). He distinguishes between notions of place-based design and on country design:
Country and place have different meanings, being on Country means being enveloped in the outside mind through being engaged in the relationships of Country. Holding this knowledge is a huge responsibility that is critical to the purpose of being. Knowledge is a way of being when we know and are accepted by Country. Place is somewhere human minds deem to be significant, while Country is itself an agent. (Sheehan in Moran et al., 2018, p. 76)
Centring Country allowed our learning to be based within Indigenous perspectives, relationships, and knowledges. While the approach drew from place-responsive practice and notions of place- based design, importantly and deliberately the approach was based on positioning the educational program in relation to Country. Sheehan expresses how emphasising Indigenous knowledge perspectives can work to decolonise design, as the interactions that result from designing ‘on country’ can build relationships with knowledge that lives within country and has partnered with human designers from the beginning (Sheehan in Moran et al., 2018, p. 76).
Design activities focused on re-enacting knowledge of and relationships to Country through design, rather than learning design tools and techniques focused on Eurocentric principles (such as layouts, grids, asymmetry, etc.). By connecting design to local knowledge, activities become specifically tied to important Western Arrarnta sites, stories, and motifs. For example, design tasks asked of students to recreate shapes from the landscape in order to learn digital shape creation through replicating the forms of local plants and bushfoods. Learning activities were situated in the local environment and required an iterative approach to lesson delivery and classroom activities. The weather, seasons, and cultural events largely dictated the form of the design workshops. As documented in section 5.3.3, the student-led bush trips enabled them to source inspiration, bush foods, and organic materials (e.g. leaves, seeds, flowers) from the local environment. These collected objects were often used as inspiration for the students’ designs—photographed and later turned into vector shapes through the
219 Adobe capture iPad app. Centring Country was about taking time to physically be on Country, for the students to share their knowledge of Country, and for this knowledge to be enacted through their design outcomes.
The objectives of the design tasks were based on telling stories, which worked to ground students in culture and identity—before moving into design. As Mary Graham (2009) illustrates, narration is interconnected within notions of Country, explaining ‘the recounting of stories, personal and collection, is premised on the idea that the lives and the relationships of persons are shaped by the stories that communities of persons negotiate and engage in to give meaning to their experience’ (p. 72). A clear outcome of the design program was students’ voices and visual identities emerged through the connections design could make to country (not through their mastery of design tools and techniques), either directly or indirectly. For Aboriginal people, value and identity are often tied to Country (Graham, 2009, p.75).
Centring the design workshops on Country drew on the Aboriginal pedagogy of land-links (Yunkaporta, 2009). The students lived experiences of land and on Country learning intersected with their personal narratives in story-based design outcomes. The student’s digital drawings and subsequent design process drew from the living landscape within a framework of profound ancestral and personal relationships with Country—a non-linear way of learning and understanding. The design workshops also drew from numerous concepts within the 8-ways framework in dynamic interplay. For example, many students enacted knowledge of Country by introspection, remembering experiences and practices. It was a non-verbal independent process, and as Harris and Malin (1994) note, the use of silence is a feature of Aboriginal learning and is further reflected in the students’ design process and concepts of anma (Thinking time). Additionally, the practicing of design was also based on practical action and hands on learning, an element of Aboriginal ways of learning (Robinson & Nichol, 1998). As the design program also focused on telling stories, story sharing and personal narratives were enacted as key pedagogies. Here, 8-ways was applied in first sharing stories and knowledge of Country and then coming to design to recreate and transmit this knowledge within a digital medium.
The pop-up shop development also worked to demonstrate students’ knowledge of enterprise management on Ntaria Country (e.g. positive financial experience, social enterprise, and business management). The outcomes produced and printed to be shared and sold further, worked to build student aspirations through connecting culture and design. The pop-up shop was also mediated by
220 Country, with the students choosing what to sell, how much to sell their work for, where to set up their shops, and when it would run—creating a design enterprise that fitted and worked within a Western Arrarnta cultural, social, and economic context. Connecting with design also provided opportunities to share culture in ways that assisted students in developing connections between Indigenous knowledge and future design applications, skills, and outcomes.
5.4.2 In dialogue with the Ntaria community
Our dialogue now turns to the importance of situating design in Ntaria, as Aboriginal ways of learning are often motivated by inclusion in the community (Christie, 1986; Stairs, 1994). The approach therefore sought to connect communication design learning to real-life purpose and contexts, and to teach design in alignment with community life and values. This was informed by the pedagogical approach of community links (Yunkaporta, 2009). Multigenerational involvement and support became integral to the design workshops. Approval from family and community was sought and valued by the students. Family support for the students’ participation, stories, and outcomes was also integral from an ethical research/researcher perspective.
The inclusion of community was an important process in learning together. The Ntaria community engaged in the design workshops in numerous and often unforeseen ways. While initial conversations with the wider community happened before the design workshops started, the connections and relationships that developed took time in developing trust, understandings, and in creating spaces where community members felt comfortable in coming and sharing, of looking, engaging, and supporting the students’ design work and their associated enterprise. This community engagement was unstructured but instrumental. There was no formula or step-by-step guide—it happened in very ordinary ways over conversations, becoming known, meeting parents, sending students home with examples of their work, and welcoming community to come to the classroom. The connections took time to develop and for the community to understand what design was and what it could be within Ntaria.
The support of the student’s families was instrumental in regard to the stories and knowledge shared within the digital drawings, and the feelings of connectedness and pride amongst students. In particular, the artists working at the Hermannsburg Potters took a particular interest in the project, in watching the students drawing in digital ways, and observing what kinds of stories they were sharing. They were regular visitors within the classroom and often provided guidance and
221 inspiration to the senior girls, on what to draw, as well as drawing technique. Their comments of
‘Marra—good one’ was a sign of respect for the senior students, that their work was not only of a high standard, but was respected and had value within the Ntaria community, not just within the classroom. The potters also came to speak for me, guide me, and endorse the program and students’ design work within the community—seeing the connections between encouraging students to pursue visual education, and how this can lead to employment and social cohesion within the community.
The relationships with the school were also paramount to the success of the program. Having the support of the teaching staff within the classroom, particularly around the flexibility of the approach, enabled the program to develop in an iterative fashion, and to develop connections to curriculum that were meaningful for the students and for Ntaria School. However, high staff turnover, reluctance of some staff to engage with technology, and their misconceptions of design meant some workshop periods were more effective than others. The lack of continuity also meant working with new staff at the start of each new term, unknown to the student and wider community, and re-moulding the program to fit their own personal teaching approach and particular areas of interest within the classroom.
The associated pop-up shop also worked to further build community connections. The broader support of staff from Ntaria School was instrumental for the students’ enterprise development, acting as first customers. This in turn worked to build confidence and pride in the students, and for them to practise their customer service and financial skills. This process also enabled them to tell their stories, to learn that people were interested in the meaning behind their work. The staff purchases also instilled in the students that their work had value.
The pop-up shop also enabled further community connections, as families came to see what the students were producing and were able to see family stories recreated in digital ways. The connections and relationships to community were instrumental in students being able to place design within a Western Arrarnta context, and see how design outcomes have meaning and value within the local environment. These connections were strengthened through digital drawing, by sharing and giving voice to Western Arrarnta culture through the design outcomes, and by the process of being, thinking, and making designs. The approach enabled them to connect their design outcomes and real-world impacts to give back to community.
222 5.4.3 In dialogue with the students
In learning to design together, it’s important to reflect on the students’ engagement in this dialogue. In Australia, little design research reflects the actual practices and perspectives of young people, with Aboriginal youth remaining largely invisible or marginal within design education research. Meanwhile media and government policies often portray Indigenous youth in Aboriginal communities as a ‘lost generation, illiterate, unemployed, and drifting’ (Kral & Schwab, 2012). But experiences in the field, research findings, students’ perceptions, and reactions from the Ntaria community suggest this is not the case. While the educational component of the design workshops focused on technical knowledge and skills-based learning, what the students bought to our learning enabled the program to develop and grow according to student interests and aspirations, but also to be connected to Country and community.
Keeping the design tasks, outcomes and processes loose, flexible, and largely undefined enabled a dialogue where students could instil their own knowledge and ways of working, to make the program relevant and useful to their own lives. In this way, the design workshops reflect our dialogue of teaching and learning, of digital design skills, and of designs that have meaning, relevance, and connection with Western Arrarnta culture. Without this dialogue with the students’, and their sharing of knowledge, identity, and aspiration, the program would not have been able to connect to Western Arrarnta culture or be relevant and meaningful to the students.
Student-led learning
The specific tasks, outcomes, and processes within the design workshops were deliberately led by the students. They were guided to construct stories or narratives, which provided a more personalised learning experience and granted them control over content. Students experimented with design outcomes that were relevant and had meaning in Ntaria, but also presented new ways of sharing knowledge and story, be they on a t-shirt, AFL jersey, or iPhone cover. The focus on student- defined outcomes enabled them to learn digital drawing skills at their own pace, and in relation to community and Country. It was important to allocate and allow for students to work based on individual aptitudes and provide opportunities to learn drawing techniques at different skill levels. The students’ involvement in the direction of the program enabled a sense of ownership, and of working towards an outcome that had relevance and value within Ntaria.
223 The students’ outcomes showed their willingness and capacity to experiment via the use of iPad technology. They utilised digital tools to forge an emerging identity not just based on reproducing designs from cultural memory, but from a multiplicity of influences. As Inge Kral (2012) notes, ‘the youth generation is rapidly claiming new cultural forms and modes and adapting them for their own purposes’ (p. 236). In shaping and representing their identities through digital drawing, students indicate they are adapting to an increasingly intercultural world, and the convergence of global forms of communication and media technologies. These technologies have the agency to incorporate change and represent what the future might hold in Ntaria. While the students show they are part of ‘digital culture’ their participation in the design workshops has firm roots within the visual heritage and tradition of creative expression that have been evolving over recent decades within the Ntaria community.
The design program also enabled the students to explore their own design process. This further acted to focus learning activities as skills based, not process-based learning (Mawson, 2003). This was achieved by structuring learning within the students’ own time frame and work flow processes. By focusing on student-defined processes, the Ntaria young adults needed to work out their own way of reaching their desired outcomes. While classroom learning activities focused on the technical skills of digital drawings, students needed to think, make decisions, and choose a story and how to represent it. Here the program provided the freedom for the students to find their own process and think about how digital drawing could fit within established knowledge and visual practice.
Exploring and discovering learning
Researchers suggest visual projects provide a context for sustained learning where youth can ‘galvanise their natural strengths’ (Damon, 1996, p. 469) while utilising digital technologies enable new kinds of ‘agency in learning’ (Barron, 2006, p. 198). David Buckingham (2008) suggests that much of the learning required in digital communication is carried out without explicit teaching, involving ‘active exploration’ (p. 17). He explores how learning with digitally-mediated technologies are primarily ‘discovery-based’ approaches to learning. Expressing:
In learning with and through [digital] media young people are also learning how to learn. They are developing particular orientations toward information, particular methods of acquiring new knowledge and skills, and a sense of their own identities as learners. They are likely to experience a strong sense of their own autonomy, and of their right to make their own choices and to follow their
224 own paths – however illusory this may ultimately be. In these domains, they are learning primarily by means of discovery, experimentation, and play, rather than by following external instructions and directions. (Buckingham, 2008, p.17)
This discovery-based learning approach was also evident in the design workshops, as students were learning by observation, trial-and-error experimentation, peer-to-peer teaching, and everyday practice. The students liked to play around with things, touch and try everything, working it out for themselves. Initial learning was by observation and imitation, informed by the deconstruct/reconstruct pedagogical approach. This tendency to try new things without a formalised step-by-step set process or written instruction is consistent with Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of situated learning.
The students’ experimentation also represented a way of discovering design tools and techniques through sequenced relations between symbols, icon-based navigation, and drawing action. Visual learning, as an Aboriginal pedagogical approach, directly draws on symbols and images from the 8-ways framework.
Such visual and spatial thinking is required for the spatially-oriented and icon-based structure of the Adobe Draw program. The symbolic conventions used in these applications enabled students to interpret, understand, and manipulate technology in socially relevant ways, without privileging the required terminology and language of menus and commands of desktop design programs. The design workshops and technology/tools used were not contingent on students’ prior literacy or technological competence. Rather the tools and associated digital medium allowed them to discover and adapt, to find different ways of achieving the outcomes they had visualised in their minds, before coming to drawing in a digital way.
Not always engaging
Yet, not all students engaged with the design program, and there were certainly times when students became disengaged, attendance dropped, students left the community to come back weeks or months later. There were those who felt shame about their work, which acted as a barrier to their success within the program, and its focus on identity and story. Not being able to represent knowledge in a way they wanted and envisaged caused students to feel shame—that their digital drawings were not good enough, or were breaking family protocols or social mechanisms. There were also differences in students’ abilities to visualise their ideas, and in using the Adobe Draw app.
225 Jean Harkins (1990) explains how the Aboriginal English term ‘shame’ differs from non-Aboriginal use and can incorporate ideas of getting shame when meeting strangers, or in the presence of relatives within kinship systems, entering an unfamiliar place, being shy, bashful, and being respectful of Elders or authority figures. Harkins also notes concepts of shame in relation to education can be around being singled out for any purpose including praise, scolding, or simply attention (1990). In the classroom, it was important to understand these cross-cultural differences, to give students time and space, to walk away, to talk to family, and to partake in interviews within groups in which they felt comfortable. Student expressions of shame were handled with ongoing care, encouragement, and support from the researcher, school staff, and the local community. Students who expressed shame were not singled out for praise, but the value and important of their work was incorporated into a more relational understanding. Community members often visited the classroom and spoke about the value of students’ digital drawings in a broader community context and their importance in sharing Western Arrarnta history and knowledge. Here, rather than being singled out personally, the student’s drawings and stories were put into family and community contexts, and the students were told they could be proud of sharing these stories, and that their families were proud of them.
5.4.4 In dialogue with the design educator
Within the dialogue of learning together, the role of the design educator was not just focused on teaching the specific skills around digital drawing, but importantly promoting Aboriginal perspectives of design. Allowing for Western Arrarnta perspectives (rather than teaching Eurocentric design education and practice) situated my role, as an educator, as a facilitator for the students to come to design from a specific cultural, spiritual, and social positioning. This enabled the students to place design within visual and cultural practices in Ntaria. And for the design educator to support students’ agency to develop their own Western Arrarnta perceptions.
Situating the design educator within a dialogue between relational connections of Country, students, design, and the wider community required teaching to be responsive to these elements. It meant teaching in a responsive way. As Karen Martin (2005) argues, educators must work from a framework that holds relatedness at its core, further emphasising, ‘we don’t need sympathy but empathy and action to help in the restoration of relatedness for ourselves as Aboriginal Australians and for all Australians’ (p. 39). Martin acknowledges schooling as a Eurocentric institution and impediments to relatedness in the context of teaching is reliance on Eurocentric frameworks for education and
226 Western models of development, arguing that the use of Eurocentric standards is inappropriate in Aboriginal practice (2005). The teaching approach therefore required me to show how I valued Aboriginal perspectives and identities by supporting the students’ cultural heritage, respecting their agency and ancestry, and applying Aboriginal pedagogies within my teaching.
From dialogue to self-reflection
Here the dialogue turns to self-reflection, and my role as a teacher within the research. Learning together required a reflexive approach to teaching, being aware of the ways in which Eurocentric perspectives have been embedded within communication design education and practice. It meant rethinking my own design education and approaching design with a new lens. It often meant feeling uncomfortable as I was forced to reconsider my own understandings and ways of teaching, to enable spaces for the students to come to design and work within their own processes and time frames. Viewing Indigenous knowledges as an inclusive and sophisticated system, rather than a limitation or obstacle to teaching, was imperative. This approach honoured Indigenous knowledges as well as the dominant systems, tools, and technologies of communication design. Working towards a participatory and strength-based approach to communication design education was an ongoing collaborative process, as we grew through the program and learning design in Ntaria together. Here our dialogue facilitated an expansion, a coming, working, and building educational programs together for the benefit of design that values, respects, and prioritises the knowledge system, and ways of being, knowing, and doing of Indigenous people.
By prioritising Aboriginal perspectives, the design workshops focused on student achievement and success through their ability to tell stories through digital drawing. The learning outcomes were not based on their understanding of Eurocentric design, or their ability to match styles of abilities of non- Indigenous students, but were instead focused on students expressing their identities, telling stories through design, and revealing what design means within a Western Arrarnta world. My role as a design educator crucially focused on supporting distinct Ntaria perspectives of design as they emerged through the design workshops. It meant visualising and discussing Ntaria perceptions of the design process and design principles through learning maps. As a cultural outsider this required listening, taking time, and learning about the students and their place within community. It meant encouraging students to share their voices and knowledge, and to not feel shame about their initial attempts or works in progress. It meant acknowledging the importance of story, family, and
227 culture and to allow these connections and relationships—of knowledge and Country—to guide our collaborative learning journey.
While promoting Ntaria perspectives of design, my role as an educator also focused around sharing and teaching digital drawing skills and techniques while troubleshooting any means of technical problems. Practical experience here was essential, as my ‘designer’ knowledge accumulated through years working within the communication design industry enabled the more technical aspects of working with vectors, saving and storing files, as well as associated printing and production requirements to be a smooth process. Sharing my own experiences working within the industry worked to instil in the students concepts of design as a means of economic participation. This was additionally advantageous for their pop-up shop as my experiences working with small-scale fair- trade enterprises and grassroots organisations helped to develop the students’ business plans, marketing collateral, and documentation.
For many of the teachers I engaged with while delivering the program, the concepts and activities were all outside the scope of their teaching training and background, with the majority of teachers trained as primary educators but working within the senior years (Barton, Baguley, & MacDonald, 2013). They struggled with the use of digital tools for learning within the classroom, and the students’ design process. Rarely did the teaching staff express an interest in learning digital skills or design approaches. Therefore, while the students can continue to work on their digital drawings and experiment with the Adobe draw apps, there are no long-term staff to guide further learning and development. Of the five teaching staff, only two engaged in the program. While the program fitted within the school curriculum, the establishment of the pop-up shop was largely due to one of the senior teachers I was fortunate to work with, who could see and understand the benefits of the program. Unfortunately, her time at the school was only for a six-week stay. The lack of long-term collaboration with staff impacted on the sustainability of the program, despite the engagement of the students and support from community. Teaching design requires educators who feel comfortable with design practice and the technical knowledge required to develop digital drawings and visual practices, while maintaining a long-term commitment to the teaching and learning of design within Aboriginal community contexts.
228 5.4.5 Together we are learning
Our dialogue, and learning together worked to reveal that design learning is enhanced where the links between content and context are acknowledged and supported. It was about framing our approach as an ongoing conversation and form of questioning, continuously asking:
Nthaakinha nurna purta urrkaapuma, relha English-akarta relha Western Arrarnta-lela ngkarramanga? How can we work together, Westerners dialoguing with Western Arrarnta people?
Rather than following a framework, or a model, it was about continuing to ask these questions and engaging in the teaching and learning of digital drawing together. It was about understanding how to work together, to listen to each other, and to share our different knowledges and experiences. There were no rigid steps, or static scaffolding to the program—the emphasis was on making space for dialogue, listening, being reflexive, and embedding Western Arrarnta knowledge in the teaching of communication design. Our learning together allowed for an organic development of communication design education in Ntaria School that was ultimately more enriching and rewarding.
5.5 Conclusion
This chapter presented a conversation around how digital drawing was introduced and taught, specific to Ntaria School. Utilising design workshops as a data collection technique enabled the introduction of digital drawing to the Ntaria young adults. While the workshop technique remained, the design workshops grew into something much more than a data collection method. Reconceptualising communication design education as on Country, narrative driven, non-linear, holistic, and community oriented assisted in and allowed for the teaching of digital drawing in Ntaria. The 8-ways framework provided a way for design educators to embed Aboriginal perspectives in how they teach, not just what they teach, working to make communication design teaching and learning culturally responsive as well as locally engaging.
The design workshops situated learning that is connected with, and of value and relevance to, community. Learning here is context embedded and locally situated. By placing Country as a foundational concept, a new way of seeing communication design education and new forms of design based on Indigenous perspectives and processes became clear. Communication design
229 education in Ntaria reveals the need for relational and interconnectedness of aspects of place, of meaning, of being, of change, and of agency.
Revealed is the manner in which communication design education can enable new kinds of agency in learning and catalysing young people’s imaginative capacities. Here design tools are about realising new potentials, of revealing and seeing new understandings of Aboriginal young adults. What we are seeing is the capacity of introducing digital drawing to enable students to experiment with new forms and layer symbolic structuring. Their innovation, digital literacy, and their capacity to manipulate both cultural heritage and contemporary global symbols, is allowing Ntaria youth to image and create new ways of being and learning, expressed in their digital drawings, their process, and their perceptions.
Importantly, the Ntaria students had agency in the way the design workshops unfolded and in their own self-representation. Through learning and dialoguing together, the Ntaria students have become aware that their various ideas, designs, and outcomes have value not only in their own community, but also to a national and international audience. By taking young people and their activities seriously, this research has highlighted the positive manner in which Indigenous youth are interpreting and responding to contemporary circumstances with agency. The research findings within this section were arguably an affirmation of Indigenous youth potential within design. In working alongside Ntaria young adults in a collaborative manner, and working from a position of relatedness, insights were gained about the capacity of youth, the meanings they attach to design, and their enacted intentions to shape their social surroundings and future options.
While our dialogue is not meant to be seen as a replicable approach for communication design education with Indigenous youth more broadly, these conversations identify what I believe is a series of relating elements that are of value in building and facilitating design education, design workshops, and for the development and embedding of design within Indigenous school curricula, particularly outside mainstream educational contexts.
230
Interlude: Taking Selfies
Figure 5.12: Taking selfies at Ntaria School, 2018
My time teaching and learning with the Ntaria students was joyful and fun. We laughed a lot—at our differences, my bad pronunciations of their language, my terrible driving, my awful sense of direction, all the silly things the students got up to, and their terrible choice in music. Students would introduce me to their parents, they would come and say hello when they saw me in town, and they invited me to their homes. They also befriended me on their preferred communication platform—Facebook. I was constantly tagged, messaged, and included within students’ endless selfies.
This relational understanding involved a process of ‘undoing’—rethinking my acceptance of teaching and learning behaviours (Somerville, 2007, p. 230). For me, this required a value-based personal commitment to representing the students in my research in ways they wanted to be represented. And remaining reflexive to prioritise this throughout the research.
231
For Western Arrarnta people, relationships form and show how things are connected, known and shared. Relationships, and the building of trust and care also determined how the study preceded and what knowledge was shared. Bull (2010) describes this as an authentic research relationship, which is committed to, ‘employing processes that allow the researcher to learn and be responsive to an Aboriginal mindset’ (p.17). An approach to learning design in Ntaria emerged that was responsive to the challenges and opportunities that presented themselves along the way. Navigating this terrain ultimately guided the overall ‘doing’ of the study. It was through taking selfies that our research emerged in the field, on Country, in the everyday, and within the lived realities of the young adults.
232 Chapter 6: The Value of Design in Ntaria 6.1 Introduction
This chapter presents findings that highlight the value of communication design for the Ntaria young adults who participated in our design education dialogue. From feeling proud of their work, being good at something at school, producing something to show their families, to encouragement and support from community, the value of design education reached far beyond the classroom. Additionally, linking communication design education to enterprise development allowed students to connect design to future careers and employment opportunities within their own community. More broadly, these findings speak to the power of digital drawing and communication design education in supporting the agency and identity of Aboriginal young adults. In thinking about the relevance and importance of design in Ntaria, they highlight the significant value of design education for them. The results speak to how design education enables a platform for the Ntaria young adults to express themselves and their contemporary connections to culture and community.
This chapter presents the results which address the third aim of the research ‘to assess the value afforded by digital drawing and design workshops in Ntaria’. It is presented in two sections:
6.2 Ntaria capabilities and relations to design examines the data in relation to the capability approach, revealing how design enables specific ‘freedoms’ the students value—evaluating the contribution of design knowledge to the freedoms and choices actually available within the community. While the capability approach gave structure to discussions of importance and value, the use of this approach as an evaluative tool had limitations. The relevance of this approach and its application and meaning in Ntaria is therefore discussed.
6.3 The value of design in Ntaria examines the students’ perceptions of the design workshops, detailing the value and importance of the project in relation to their sense of wellbeing as well as its broader social, cultural, and economic value within the community. Discussion around the techniques employed to examine the value and importance of design, gives some insight into the importance of relationships and oral communication in research with Aboriginal young adults.
233 6.2 Ntaria capabilities and relations to design
Introduction
The insights presented here draw on the capability approach (introduced in section 2.4.4) and detail how it was applied within the research context. The capability approach was employed to frame development around understanding and expanding peoples’ abilities to lead the kinds of lives they value. This development theory provided a framework to guide the evaluation of our design education dialogue, or our learning of design together, from the perspective of the Ntaria students. Our dialogue reflects a relational, inclusive, and collaborative approach to design education within Ntaria School (see section 5.4). I now turn to understanding how participants perceive digital drawing and design education by focusing on the lives the students valued, and their perceptions of design education in relation to these values, it was important to understand what the participants ‘want to engage in’ and ‘who they want to be’ (Robeyns, 2005). Here I specifically address the role and contribution of our communication design education dialogue to student defined capabilities, specifically addressing how design can relate to dimensions students value.
As a start, it is important to acknowledge the clear limitations of this approach. The results are not wide-ranging in relation to documenting concepts of wellbeing for the students, but based on the student’s perceptions of design education, process, and outcomes. The results pertaining to capabilities have not been shared or discussed with the wider Ntaria community, only with the 12 students involved in conversational style interviews and subsequent analysis. They are therefore only representative of the views of those students present with regards to data collection. The intention is to simply highlight, through articulating the capabilities and aspirations of the students, the value of our design education dialogue for them and the implications for the wider Ntaria community.
How capabilities were identified
The identification of students’ capabilities was planned to occur within Stage 1 of the research (see section 3.4.1 for an overview of the research stages). Yet students were reluctant to engage in conversation about their aspirations and values within these early stages, as relationships and trust were not yet established, and the students had not yet developed their own perceptions of design, and therefore could not understand what value it might have for them in Ntaria. It wasn’t until we became known and relatedness was established, that students started sharing with me, which
234 occurred only after many months of engagement and numerous visits. This relatedness and engagement shows how the capability approach and participatory research can complement and reinforce each other (Clark, Biggeri, & Frediani, 2019). This time also enabled the students to engage within the design workshops and therefore make sense of how design education and outcomes could impact on their abilities to live lives they valued.
While the capability approach provided guiding principles for the transformative power of participation, a Youth Participatory Action Research approach (see section 3.2.2) enabled vital techniques for making the capability approach operational. Working from an ethics of participation, collaboration, and reflection enabled time and space for students to engage in these conversations when they felt ready. The combination of these theoretical and methodological approaches prioritised not only the voices and values of the students, but enabled a flexible research design guided by how they wanted to participate and when. Thus, the majority of conversations around students’ values and aspirations were collected during Stage 3 of the research.
Identification of student capabilities was conducted within the context of design education, and followed the design workshops, or Stage 2 of the research. Therefore, the capabilities discussed here are only in relation to the students’ experiences of designing, and do not speak to any broader capabilities of the young adults, or of measuring such capabilities. The students’ quotes have been de-identified and numbered within these discussions to highlight the breadth of voices, while also pointing to how different students may have had more engagement in interviews than others.
How a capability approach was applied
The students were asked to reflect on their experiences of design principles, process, and what value communication design education could have in Ntaria through conversational interviews conducted during Stage 3 of the research. From the responses of the 12 students who participated in these conversations, it was possible to interpret how communication design education relates to the essential capabilities as defined by these Ntaria students. The value of our design education dialogue was then evaluated against the conditions that have importance and relevance to the participants. As Alkire (2007) discusses, the aim of the capability approach is to capture the student’s actual values and priorities through ongoing discussion, supported by a participatory approach to analysis.
Through collective analysis (see section 3.5 for a detailed overview), three capabilities were identified:
235 1) The capability for voice and representation
2) The capability to maintain knowledge and identity
3) The capability for staying on Country
Argued here is how the student’s pursuit of these three capabilities relates to their priorities and behaviours within a broader understanding of wellbeing—of design education contributing to feelings of being and feeling well (White, 2010). Following the discussion of the identified capability dimensions, insights into the limitations of the approach, and its relevance within the context of Ntaria provide the focus for the remainder of this section.
6.2.1 We have things to say: Voice and representation
For the Ntaria students who participated in our conservations around capabilities, having a voice was crucial to allow them to live lives they valued. Three students talk about how digital drawing enables them to have a unique voice and to represent their identities, culture, and community in ways that define them and their contemporary experiences:
I can use design to tell the old stories, but also new ones. Design can fit into our culture. I like designing. I like drawing and working on the laptops and working with technology and learning new skills. (Student 1) I was inspired to do this design. I don’t know anyone else who does it this way, this style. When I design I tell stories about my dreaming. (Student 2) I tell old stories. I tell new stories. I tell gangsta [sic] stories. I tell stories about horses. (Student 3)
While the students do not specifically speak to ‘voice’ and ‘representation’ they refer to them on a more general level in their ability to depict both ‘old’ and ‘new’ stories and knowledge in their own style. Listening to their perceptions, and cultural authority over their stories and styles enabled the capability of voice to emerge. Through their digital drawings, students were able to present a visual representation of themselves, their lives, and their community. They expressed both the old and the new, and how these merge within their contemporary realities.
Three students also speak to the importance of representation—of family, country, and identity:
I like design because I like drawing and drawing my Country makes me feel good. (Student 1)
236 It’s important to tell these stories. Design in school is good. It’s good to get ideas and learn stuff. (Student 4) My design tells stories of culture and bush tuckers. Things that are important to me. My designs are about culture. Dreaming. They are all from this place. (Student 5)
The students’ voices, of drawing Country and telling stories point to the power of voice. For the Ntaria young adults involved in this research, having their own voice in relation to what they drew, and what stories they were able to share through digital drawing was important. Interpreting their responses (through the lens of capabilities) points to the accurate representations of knowledge, voice, and identity as crucial capabilities for them. Through digital drawing, students were using both their visual outcomes to tell their stories, share their knowledge, and raise contemporary social issues, but they were also responding to concerns about how Aboriginal youth are represented— presenting themselves how they wish to be seen, acknowledged, and respected.
Rarely, within public domains of research and design discourse are youth voices privileged, while Indigenous youth remain relatively invisible. Sen (1999) argues voice is necessary to ‘express publicly what we value and to demand that attention be paid to it’ (p. 152). Through a capability framing, the capability for voice enables digital drawing to offer this freedom, for design to offer students a voice, and for their digital drawings to be seen and valued, which in turn impacts students’ sense of wellbeing, and their relations to culture and community.
Sen’s concept of the capability approach elaborates a way of realising how design can enable the students to live lives they value, and impact on wellbeing, by linking this to the capability for voice (Sen, 1999). Voice and representation enabled the students’ realities to become known, for them to have power and control over how they were represented—harnessed by their engagement with digital drawing and design education. The design workshops enabled students to express things important to them—giving them a voice in choosing what to represent and how to represent their contemporary identities. Design enabled the capability for voice and representation to emerge as crucial for their creative futures and its value for their sense of wellbeing.
6.2.2 Design connects us to community and culture: Maintaining knowledge and identity
Conversations with students consistently reflected an ongoing dynamic connection between past and future. This related to their own sense of wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of community and
237 Country. As three of the students express, maintaining knowledge was enabled through their engagement with design:
Design connects us to community through generations. By talking about culture. (Student 5) Design can connect you to community by showing your Country. By sharing your Country with other people. (Student 6) Design can connect you to community and culture by drawing Country. (Student 7)
Through the lens of the capability approach, the maintenance of this knowledge forms a core part of the students’ responsibilities and of living lives they value. The students connect the designing of digital drawings to the maintenance of family relationships and community knowledge. As two of them express:
I can tell culture stories through design that I’ve learnt from my great-grandmother. (Student 1) When I show my family my work they say ‘oh my goshhh’ they say ‘I feel proud for your work’ and ‘I’m so proud you’re doing that thing with your art.’ (Student 8)
These voices highlight that digital drawing outcomes of the students acted as connectors to family, and to the cultural knowledge that exists within these relationships. These connections can be interpreted as a core capability dimension—that students need to be able to maintain family and community knowledge, ‘culture stories’, for their lives to have meaning and for their sense of wellbeing. As such, relationships with community and culture form an important aspect of wellbeing and the maintenance of these relationships forms a core part of the students’ choices to engage within design education.
The Ntaria young adults, aware of the importance of connection and relationships, are considering the maintenance of culture, and of family and community when designing. There are also strong links between cultural knowledge, and positive indicators of wellbeing, as Dockery (2010) explores:
Strong attachment to traditional culture seems to be statistically associated with better outcomes across a diverse range of dimensions of socio-economic wellbeing. Strong cultural attachment is associated with better health ... This may be indicative of the isolation, confusion and the feelings of loss of control and self-esteem that often beset people trying to ‘live between two cultures.’ (p. 329)
As the students express their desires to tell stories through design to maintain cultural knowledge, it also forms a core part of their own identities—regenerating this knowledge to make sense of it within
238 their own contemporary lives. As Kral argues, ‘on one level a person’s identity is defined in relation to others, but on another, it is formed and performed in social process with others’ (2010, p. 51). Therefore, these connections with family, community, and culture are vital in living lives of value. Telling cultural stories through design enabled students to enact and negotiate their own identities, which are in an ongoing process of development and change as they find their own place within the community and digital world.
6.2.3 Our Country. Our Land: Staying on Country
When the students spoke about the importance of staying on Country, they regularly made reference to a cultural understanding of wellbeing and how this interplayed with their desire to remain in Ntaria. As five students describe:
We all want to stay in the community. (Student 1) This is our home. (Student 3) I love my outstation – Red Sand Hill. (Student 4) I want to stay here with family and culture. It’s beautiful Country. (Student 9) All my friends and family are here. It’s my home. (Student 10)
The students were clear they would not forgo living on Country and upholding its rituals for further education or employment. Being here was a core component of being well, not an option referred to as a ‘lifestyle choice’ by a former Australian Prime Minister (The Guardian, 2015). In a response, which acts to illuminate the importance of staying on Country, Northern Land Council's chief executive Joe Morrison stated: ‘Aboriginal people who live on outstations are much healthier than those who don't. That's a fact, Prime Minister. Real connection to country is not only culturally sustaining, it's good for people’ (SMH, 2015).
The students speak to Country and its importance. As three students express:
I like the outstations here. I like sitting and listening to stories. Culture and family are important to me. (Student 5) I want people to know about this place. (Student 11) I’ve drawn a waterhole with fishes. I drew it because it reminds me of a special water place. It’s important because it’s our culture. We go fishing and we get a lot of fish. It’s at Palm Valley. My family go there. (Student 12)
239 While the students speak to the importance of Country predominately through their visual outcomes, the link between community, Country and wellbeing is also made evident by one of the Western Arrarnta teacher’s aides, who supported the delivery of our design education dialogue and who joined our conversation, expressing:
The kids want to stay in the community because they might get homesick. Family is important. The school should be helping us find jobs for the kids in community. (teacher’s aide)
Donna Vaughan in her research on capabilities within remote communities describes how ‘wellbeing is defined ultimately by the re-establishment and empowerment of community on their traditional lands spanning all current generations’ (2011, p. 142). From the perspective of the teacher’s aide (also one of the participant’s parents), staying on Country encompasses not just living on the land, continuing knowledge through generations, and connecting youth with their culture, but also sustaining a livelihood from the land, and being able to care for their Country through employment.
In relation to design, telling stories through digital tools is important not only for the importance of ‘drawing on’ and ‘drawing’ the knowledge itself, but also as an alternative, accessible, and contemporary mechanism for young people to pass on these stories from generation to generation. The young adults engaged in this research speak to the importance of creating futures which allow them to be continually connected to family and community. The importance of this in relation to the research is that the students can weave the affordance of digital drawing to a specific set of capabilities and dimensions of wellbeing—threading and linking design to potential futures that have value and meaning for them.
6.2.4 The relevance of capabilities in Ntaria
The capability approach provided a theoretical framing for the research, and was positioned as an evaluative tool to enable to students to determine the value of the design program on their own terms. However, there were limitations around the relevance of such an approach within the context of Ntaria.
The capability approach provided an initial structure on which to base the evaluation of the study, particularly from the perspectives of the participants. It enabled a way to approach the study which gave voice to the participants and to understand which dimensions of design education had value for them, and, importantly, how design could have meaning within a Western Arrarnta world. The
240 approach also allowed for the value of design to emerge through the doing of the study—it wasn’t a preconceived framework of wellbeing dimensions, or development principles that had to overlay discussions or analysis. In this way, the value of design education could emerge reflexively through the doing of design.
Yet, the process of identifying their capabilities was not meaningful for them. This was additionally pressed by associated data collection methods, which relied heavily on English language skills, and my interpretation of the students expressing themselves in English language constructs, rather than understanding what value and meaning might be from a Western Arrarnta perspective. There may have also been hesitation around communicating what they want to say out of ‘shame’, or the meaning of what they wanted to say escaping my understanding.
The discussion is therefore limited. Discussions around capabilities were focused on how design could enable them to live lives of value in the future. Yet, the value for the students was also about connection, not just to the future, but to the past and the present moment. Therefore, the process of identifying capabilities had little relevance, as they more broadly discussed the importance and value of design—not how it could enable imagined lives in the future. It also positioned the concept that lives of value were in the future, and that they needed to be ‘enabled’. Yet, for the students, their lives are already full of value and meaning. Here, design acts as a ’complement’ to their lives and another medium for sharing their existing knowledge. The students are already living lives they value in Ntaria, they might just not look like, or meet the criteria of, those coming from outside a Western Arrarnta worldview.
While the framework enabled the discussion of how design education has meaning, value, and relevance in Ntaria from the perspectives of the participants, the process of identifying capabilities held little relevance, nor was it an empowering process for them.
6.3 The value of design in Ntaria
Introduction
This section focuses on the findings that relate to the value of design in Ntaria from the perspectives of the participants. It also moves away from capabilities to discuss a more holistic understanding of the value of design in Ntaria. I argue here that the students’ perceptions enable a greater understanding of the value of design in Ntaria and how it enables cultural pride and strength,
241 control over self-representation, intergenerational knowledge sharing, as well as enterprise opportunities.
The design program enabled the students to nurture their knowledge of Country and their relationships with it. The participants were learning new skills, techniques, and ways of working with technology. They felt respected by their families for their work, commitment to learning, and importantly, having fun. Connecting with Country and community, through story, meant the students felt comfortable in creating digital drawings and working with design-based mediums. Their designs had meaning, feeling, and family embedded within them. This is also true of how they perceived the value of our design education dialogue and the strengths of digital drawing in Ntaria— encompassing social and cultural dimensions, as well as future economic possibilities.
The analysis of the value of digital drawing and design education in Ntaria was collected from conversational interviews and a self-reflection survey during Stage 3 of the research, presented in three themes. These include:
1) 6.3.1 Agency and pride, which presents the students feelings on creating and finishing work and being able to share it with family, community, and with customers.
2) 6.3.2 Engendering enterprise, which examines the value of the pop-up shop for students and how they see design within their creative futures as a potential enterprise development within the community.
3) 6.3.3 Transferring knowledge across generations, which detail the intergenerational impacts of the design program and the value of being able to share stories through digital drawing.
The analysis also reveals insights into the use of different data collection techniques, and how some methods were more substantial and revealing (such as the students’ digital drawings) than others, which relied more heavily on written engagement or English language (such as interviews and surveys). While the data from conversations and the self-reflection survey are presented, its collection was perhaps not as accessible for students to engage with, and was limiting in relation to self-expression in their own language and understandings. Discussed in section 6.3.4 Reflections of value and participation are the limitations of the data collection techniques utilised to evaluate the
242 value of the program, as well as how students engaged with the workshops over the course of the project, and how they chose to participate.
Collecting data on value
Data was collected across Stage 3 of the research to explore the value of our design education dialogue and the students’ resulting digital drawing skills and knowledge (see Figure 1.7 in section 1.5). Data was collected through conversational interviews and a self-reflection survey, which asked students to reflect on their digital drawings in the context of community and their creative futures. In the survey students were able to respond with written or visual answers, and asked questions like: What would you most like to make with design? Where would you sell them? Is your work something you are proud of? What are your goals? (see Figure 6.1 for example). Sixteen students participated in conversational interviews around the value of design education and digital drawing, while 12 students completed self-reflection surveys.
The data from conversational interviews and the survey is supported by observational photographs of the students, and literature pertaining to digital usage and identity formation of young adults in Aboriginal communities, which illuminates the core values of design from the students’ perspectives and gives broader context to the themes identified. Here, the importance of cultural, spiritual, and relational practices are unpacked in relation to digital drawing in Ntaria, revealing a distinct youth voice on the impact of design education and the repercussions for them within constructs of family, community, identity, and wellbeing.
243
Figure 6.1: An example of a student’s response to the self-reflection survey
6.3.1 Design makes us feel proud: Agency and pride
The students who participated in the conversations and self-reflection survey identified feeling proud as a significant outcome of the design workshops. Through digital drawing, they are
244 visualising positive representation of self and pride in their cultural identity. As three of the students express:
It’s important for people to know our culture. To respect our culture. To respect us. (Student 1) I feel proud when I make my design work. (Student 3) I feel proud making all this design work. (Student 4)
The students’ responses show how they have taken responsibility for what they are designing, creating, making, and sharing, and how this generates feeling proud of their identity. Here design, through the students recounting of stories and narratives, encourages people, as Mary Graham suggests, to ‘re-author their own lives according to alternative and preferred stories of identity, and according to preferred ways of life’ (2009, p. 72). These positive representations are also reflected by the students through the process of designing. The students point to design working in two interrelated ways. Firstly, it was something they were good at doing. Secondly, the doing of design also made them feel good. As four of the students illustrate:
Design makes me feel good. Like I want to finish things and keep going. I feel good doing this. It makes me feel like I am good at something. (Student 2) Designing makes me feel good. I feel good finishing it. When I finish I feel proud. (Student 4) Designing makes me feel good because I like drawing. It looks good and then I feel good. (Student 5) Designing makes me feel good, because when I draw it, it looks just like what I want, what’s in my head. (Student 6)
The overwhelming sense of ‘feeling good’ was evident within the student interviews—that their work has turned out how they wanted, and they were proud to have completed a finished design. One student speaks to the sense of feeling good being tied to the activity of drawing itself. This points to how drawing signals a relatedness to the cultural and spiritual processes of Western Arrarnta life. It signals a continuity with community traditions. The correlation of their design ‘looking good’ to ‘feeling good’ is also testament to their commitment to learning, practising, and the value within the design process.
The completed self-reflection surveys speak to the students’ sense of pride in sharing their work. In opposition to feelings of shame, often associated with students’ engagement in formal learning environments, the students indicated their achievements, responsibilities, and good choices within
245 the classroom, as well as their sense of pride in their work. Of the 12 students who completed the survey, all students when asked, ‘Is my work something that I am proud of?’ indicated very to extremely proud (see Figure 6.2 for example). Additionally, when asked if they would be proud to share their work with a large audience, 8 students indicated yes (also see Figure 6.2). The students were proud of what they had achieved, but also proud of their learning abilities, to engage in classroom activities and complete tasks.
Figure 6.2: An example of a student self-reflection worksheet. Students were asked if their digital drawing was something they were proud of, and if they would be proud to show their work to a large audience. They were also asked about choices they made and their intentions for the following day.
Yet the data gathered from the reflection survey is perhaps not as revealing or as rich as the voices of the students, nor do they reflect what factors or components of design education led to feeling of agency and pride. However, students revealed more specific understandings in during conversations.
The students identified how the purchasing of their designed outcomes worked to increase feelings of pride. As two of the students expressed:
When people bought the t-shirts I designed I felt good. Really proud. When I see people wearing the t-shirts I designed I feel really good. (Student 2)
246 When people buy my designs it makes me feel good. When they wear it they look at me and say my name and say ‘good one ay.’ I feel proud and excited. Everything. Happy. Good. I have a smile on my face. (Student 7)
This strong encouragement and support further enabled students to feel their work had value within the community—socially, culturally, and economically. Their sense of control over authorship and outcomes, in selling their work to school staff, family, and community points to the wider value of design education. The students, through the program have developed the skills and confidence in their work and identity to positively speak to, present, and sell their work to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within the community, and importantly, feeling comfortable in doing so.
The students also expressed a sense of belonging and responsibility in sharing their skills, knowledge, and stories through design. As one student explains:
When my designs get printed I feel happy. Design is important to me to show family. They feel proud. Other students look up to us. They could learn it too and feel proud. (Student 8)
As relatedness, family, and country are imperative to the students’ sense of wellbeing, the sharing and remaking of knowledge and story enabled students to feel proud of being part of this knowledge transfer. Additionally, students were proud of the technical skills they had learnt through the design workshops, evident when younger students visited the classroom and sat and watched the older students draw on the iPads (see Figure 6.3). The senior students often sat with the younger students and showed them what they had been learning—the younger students looking up to them and what they had created (see Figure 6.4).
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Figure 6.3: A senior student from Ntaria School shows primary students his drawing on the iPad
Figure 6.4: A senior student from Ntaria School shows primary students how to draw on the iPad
248 The design workshops enabled a space for the students to communicate their values, realities, concerns, and ideas, and in doing so, positively contributed to their sense of wellbeing and affirmations of identity. The students were able to express pride in their culture, Country, and place within contemporary life, and to feel good about their abilities and outcomes. They were ‘good’ at design, which was further reinforced by the pride expressed by their families. The support of school staff, community, and tourism customers also enabled the students to realise their designs were desired, worthy of purchase, and gladly worn in the community—further reinforcing feelings of happiness and pride.
6.3.2 We could make out own company: Engendering enterprise
As the pop-up shop and enterprise development was a priority area for Ntaria School, learning activities within our design workshops were tied to the creation of outcomes that could be printed and sold within the community. Within the design workshops, the students developed a pop-up shop to share, distribute, and sell their designs under the name ‘Ntaria Design.’ During the workshops, students were quick to pick up on the potential income generation available through designing, making, and printed items that could be sold. As one student comments:
We could make money from design by selling clothes. At the bottom shop. We could sell them at a shop. Make our own things. We could make our own company. (Student 9)
At the end of the design workshop program the students held a pop-up shop within Ntaria School and practised how to sell the items they had designed and printed (see Figure 6.5). As a class group they decided on how much items should be sold for, created price tags, price lists, and online posts advertising their shop. The pop-up shop activity was tied to the senior curriculum within Ntaria School and managed by the senior teacher, and thus involved broader literacy and numeracy outcomes. As one student explains:
I learnt how to write receipts, counting money, talking to customers, telling customers my story. (Student 10)
Following the practise run within Ntaria School, supported by staff and the students’ family, the pop- up shop was run at the request of the students, at the Hermannsburg historic precinct, a popular spot for visiting tourists, which features historic buildings from Ntaria’s mission days, an art gallery and a café (see Figure 6.6 and 6.7). The students decided on what roles they would take on the day, with a
249 small team being responsible for a particular aspect: marketing, sales, finance, operations. The students engaged with visiting tourists, working to develop their English language skills, and were responsible for the sales of their designed items, engaging in non-directed learning and a meaningful cultural activity whilst having control over the sharing and sale of their designs.
Figure 6.5: The senior students practise selling their designs at Ntaria School. They told customers the stories behind their work as well as practising writing receipts and giving customers the correct change.
Figure 6.6: The senior students at their pop-up shop at the Hermannsburg historic precinct
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Figure 6.7: The senior students at their pop-up shop at the Hermannsburg historic precinct. Each student had a specific area and associated tasks to complete on the day, such as the students here, responsible for the shop finances, and giving customers the correct change.
The students who participated in the conversations and self-reflection survey identified the potential to start their own design enterprise as a core value that communication design education brings to Ntaria. Kral and Schwab (2012) argue that for remote youth, ‘finding enterprise-generating activities for young people is an economic necessity’ (p. 89). The pop-up shop worked in harmony with students’ capabilities and community values. The students were proud to be sharing their knowledge, stories, and designs, while their families and the wider community were proud of what they had created.
The potential of a design-based enterprise was further reinforced by outsiders, such as tourists seeing the value in the students’ design, and thus the students understanding not just the social and cultural value of their work, but its economic value. This combination of factors positively impacted their sense of wellbeing, and how they imagined communication design education having value in Ntaria. It also worked to motivate students in their learning within the classroom. As two students note after the pop-up shop:
251 When people bought the cards and things I designed I felt happy. That they buy it from us. So then we can design more things, like shirts and cards and send them to the printer. (Student 3) After I [work in] the shop I feel inspired to make more designs. I want the shop to keep going. Because it’s fun. (Student 11)
The enterprise potential of design was further expressed by students, who could envisage designing, printing, and selling products as a means of economic participation within their community. As two students express:
I’d like to get a job and make money from design. I want to spend the money on clothes and fun stuff. (Student 1) I want to learn how to make money from design. I like working with the iPads. When my design gets printed I feel happy. Because then I know I can sell it and make money. (Student 12)
As a culturally relevant, socially enriching, and community supported means of potential income generation, the students expressed ways they could develop their own enterprise on their self- reflection surveys. They detailed what they wanted to sell and where they would be comfortable in selling their design outcomes (see Figure 6.8).
252 Figure 6.8: An example of a student’s self-reflection worksheet. Students were asked to describe and draw the type of products they would like to make and where they would potentially sell them. Nine students wrote locations within the community: the ‘top’ and ‘bottom shop’, the two supermarkets at either end of town, and the tea room which is a café within the Hermannsburg historic precinct. Four students mentioned selling their work online and in art galleries.
The potential contribution of communication design education to employment and economic participation was also noted by Western Arrarnta school staff and students’ family members. As the teacher’s aide comments:
The kids could sell their designs in community. We get a lot of tourists out here. Families would be proud for them, for what they did. (teacher’s aide)
This is also expressed by two of the students:
Design would be a good job to do in the community. (Student 2) Design is a way to make money that is fun and not boring. (Student 7)
For the Ntaria students the design workshops enabled them to see how communication design could fit within their futures, enabling them to remain in Ntaria. Design was also enriching—culturally and spiritually—enabling a form of economic participation that was in harmony with Western Arrarnta ways of being, knowing, and doing. Importantly, it was an enjoyable activity—it was fun.
6.3.3 Passing on our stories in important: Transferring knowledge across generations
The students’ voices provide a direct view on how the Ntaria young adults see their place within a generational exchange, sharing the stories of their families, but also projecting their futures and developing their own styles. As Jojola (2014) explores, there are significant long-term benefits for the acquisition and transfer of local knowledge that reinforce how Indigenous design can activate social transformation. The students’ stories affirm their place within the community, but also show what it means to be an Aboriginal youth on a local, national, and global stage. Digital drawing enabled them to affirm their own contemporary identities. The value of the students’ digital drawings is related to both the maintenance and transformation of their knowledge. They have value as sites of cultural survival, but also the remaking of this knowledge for future generations. Digital drawing is a tool to keep stories alive.
253 The value of design in Ntaria was identified by the students as an intergenerational knowledge sharing tool. The participants expressed their responsibility in looking after Country, of knowing the history of the community, and stories inherited from their Elders. As one student expresses:
It’s important for people to see our culture and to see the old stuff. (Student 1)
This comment points to the importance of Ntaria’s history to the students, as they maintain strong, meaningful links through both their drawings and conversations. For the students the value of design can be interpreted as working in a twofold way. Firstly, their families were proud the students expressed their knowledge and stories, following in the footsteps of their Elders. As one student expresses:
My grandmother sees my design and that I am following in her footsteps, and she says ‘I’m proud!’ (Student 4)
Secondly, the value of design was also in the ongoing importance of sharing these stories, not just in following Elders, but in passing these stories onto the following generations, as one student states:
Design makes me feel good because I can show my family, friends. To me it’s important to tell my families’ stories. And to share these with other people. (Student 9)
Digital drawing therefore provided a link between the old stories, and the contemporary realities of the students, and their desire to share both with family, young and old. As Fran Edmonds (2014) describes: ‘digital stories are viewed as the new oral histories, enabling families and individuals to recollect and to reclaim their histories through images and words’ (Edmonds et al., 2014, p. 99). The value of design for future students and future generations was also indicated, as one student expresses:
I think other students would like to learn how to design things. Because when they look, they would like to do it too. (Student 10)
Here we see the students acknowledge that other, younger students could benefit from creating and sharing of digital drawings and stories. The students here convey a clear importance and value of communicating and telling their stories through digital drawing.
254 6.3.4 Reflections of value and participation
In discussing the value of the design workshops from the students’ perspectives, it is also crucial to include here the ways students engaged in the program, and in the specific data collection activities related to value. As briefly touched upon in section 4.1.1, Chapter 4, the number of students enrolled at Ntaria School over the course of the design workshops was over 40, yet there were 16 students who regularly and consistently attended, completed digital drawings, and took part in interviews. These 16 students were not all present during each day of workshop delivery. Students intermittently attended class, with cultural and family responsibilities taking precedence over schooling. Therefore, some data collection activities, undertaken during a day or over the course of a week, had only 8 students complete, and their responses in interview are only in reference to each specific student’s attendance.
Students interviewed around the value of the design workshops may have therefore only attended for a few days over the course of the project, while others may have had more consistent engagement. This fluidity of attendance meant the students’ reactions to the workshops and data collection activities will therefore also be varied, according to their own engagement.
Additionally, there were students who chose not to participate in the design workshops. Some were not interested in drawing, had no interest in telling stories (either contemporary or connected to family), or did not want to engage with the activities within the design workshops. Others who showed initial interest, found drawing on the iPad too challenging, and disengaged with the digital components of the program. The senior teacher therefore provided other learning activities for those students who did not want to participate. The Ntaria students were never forced to participate in the design workshops. The study was focused on participatory and qualitative research, allowing for individual responses and insights into the participants digital drawing process, meaning, education, and value. Therefore, those students who chose not to participate in the activities had little impact on the findings. Only completed digital drawings were included in the analysis, with the consent of the participating students. The students who chose to engage did so—they wanted to participate and had an interest in learning digital drawing.
The techniques used to gather data in relation to value also provided varying response, with some offering rich and revealing results, while others providing limited reactions, meaning, and relevance. The self-reflection survey provided little insight into the students’ perceptions around the value of
255 digital drawing and communication design education. It relied heavily on reading and writing in English—often a second or even third language to most of the students. Therefore, their responses were limited in terms of their understandings of the questions, and answering them according to English standards. Students may have chosen to not answer or to not reveal their true perspectives due to language constraints. Additionally, the students may not have been truthful, knowing myself and the senior teacher would be looking at their responses. This concern is also true of the interviews, with students not expressing, or being hesitant in their responses due to the nature of our relationship and my place as an educator within a school environment.
The written forms of data also rely heavily on my interpretation of their written texts and responses. While some questions asked for visual responses, it is still my interpretation of both the words and the visual which formulated the discussion on value. And while a collective approach to analysis was taken, again the students engaged more with their digital drawings, and associated stories than they did with questions and themes around value. The value of the self-reflection survey within this research was particularly limited. For the students, talking and sharing was more inclusive, meaningful, and more important than a survey.
The students who consciously chose to be involved and participate in the data collection activities and analysis did so out of choice. They realised how design and telling stories through digital drawing could help their culture. It was also due to my time spent in the field, and the building of trust and relatedness that students shared with me at all. Their willingness to interact, and engage in data collecting activities was a large part because of the time spent getting to know each other— highlighting the importance of being there and establishing relationships, to both gather rich data, but also provide meaningful ways for students to engage in the research.
6.4 Conclusion
This chapter detailed the findings of how the Ntaria students understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education. It discussed how their design-based learning positively impacted them as individuals, but also their place within the community and their responsibilities in relation to passing on cultural knowledge and looking after Country. The overarching value of the design workshops, and interrelated aspects of cultural identity, and wellbeing, is best expressed by one of the senior students:
256 Working in design is good for us and good for the community. Because it’s healthy. Because you can do it with lots of friends. It keeps us strong. Keeps us happy. Design would be a good job we can do in community. It could make us rich! If I had money, I’d spend it on clothes and food. On a car. On food for all the family. (Student 4)
It was clear the importance and value was far-reaching. The students engaged in the design workshops as they were able to adapt their learning processes and outcomes to fit within capability dimensions’ imperative to their futures, and of living lives of value to them. It is hard to express the sense of accomplishment evident within the senior students as they moved through the program. Students who too often are told they are at a disadvantage to the rest of Australians. Yet their beaming smiles, the joy in sharing their stories, in selling their work, in knowing the worth and significance of their designs across social, cultural, and economic dimensions made the value of the program clear to anyone who was there to bear witness to it. Their narratives here, powerful in their own right, don’t seem to do justice to just how important it was for these young adults to be proud of themselves, in their culture, in their identities, and place in the world.
Understanding the values and aspirations directly from the young adults, rather than about them, provides insights into what kinds of lives they want to lead. While the capability approach itself was limited in relation to meaning and relevance to the Ntaria students, it enabled an evaluation of the program in relation to the dimensions the participants identified. It also enabled an exploration of how the Ntaria young adults visualise and construct a positive sense of self through digital drawing, connecting to Country, and sharing their stories across generations.
The findings also point to the learning of design and acquiring digital drawing skills as enabling students to envision a future where they can remain on country and engage with enterprise possibilities. As one student expresses:
We’d like to keep going and make more designs. We want to make some money by working hard. I’d like to design all the time. (Student 2)
Evident through the findings in this chapter is that the young people who participated in the program are motivated and proud. Design enabled them to have a role in community that enabled them to connect with their cultural knowledge.
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Interlude: The Pop-up Shop
Figure 6.9: The Ntaria senior students at their pop-up shop at the Hermannsburg historic precinct, September 2017
The role of the Ntaria students shifted over the course of the research from participants learning a new skill within an education setting, to co-enquirers of the project, as the teaching and learning of design in Ntaria developed and we engaged in a process of doing and understanding together. Initially the Youth-based Participatory Action Research approach felt ambiguous. It wasn’t until the study got underway, that the methodological approach began to make sense and the students began to take a more significant place within the research. As education researcher Alison Cook-Sather notes:
Learners can be translated into co-researchers of educational experiences, translating researchers into partners with students in making meaning through the research process, and translating qualitative research’s approaches and modes of presenting findings into new versions of those processes and products. (2012, p. 352)
As the project developed the relationship between Ntaria ‘learners’ and my role as ‘researcher’ transformed. Once students gained the basic skills of digital drawing, they began to expand and
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explore different outcomes that made sense within their lived experiences and worldviews. Learning became more collaborative, as I learnt more about the students’ perceptions of design and watched their design processes evolve. My role changed, from leading design workshops and learning activities, to more of a technical support role, as the students took their design skills and created their own self-defined outcomes.
Our changing roles were evident within the students’ pop-up shop. They were so happy and proud to physically see the results of their hard work, and to be selling the work they had created. They took total control of the shop, telling customers the stories behind their designs, sharing knowledge about their community and culture, and counting all the money they made. It was such an inspiring day.
As I reflect on the experience of designing with Ntaria youth, I have learnt that experiencing challenges and disruptions to an originally well-structured, planned, and ethically approved program is no longer something to fear. Experiencing our changing relationships with the students, added more depth to the research, and it became a more empowering experience for them. My initial frustrations with the pace of community life, in the end, turned out to be a liberating and enriching experience, that has truly changed my values and worldview. The time and space required to develop relationships provided rich insights into the world and lives of the Ntaria students. It forced me to let go of my preconceived ideas, my expectations, to step out of my comfort zone and learn from the young adults, their perspectives, and their world.
259 Chapter 7: Conclusion and Discussion
7.1 Chapter aims and overview
The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the process in answering the research question, and to deepen understandings of Western Arrarnta perceptions of design, and their broader implications within communication design research and education.
The study asked: How do Western Arrarnta young adults imagine and make meaning from digital drawing and communication design education?
Encompassed within the central research question were three interconnected aims, related to Western Arrarnta perceptions of design, namely:
1) To explore how the introduction of digital drawing can reveal Western Arrarnta imaginings of communication design in relation to design principles, process, and meanings.
2) To evaluate the teaching of communication design through design workshops according to Western Arrarnta ways of learning.
3) To understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education according to the Ntaria students’ perspectives and priorities.
These aims were designed to explore and uncover a Western Arrarnta imagining of communication design through the digital drawings of young adults at Ntaria School.
This research was conducted on Western Arrarnta Country and on Western Arrarnta time. Presented here is a discussion on how things worked in the context of this research, its limitations, and methodological insights gained along the way. A discussion on the broader implications and agenda for future research arising from this thesis follows.
The concluding reflections complete the learning journey for the purposes of this thesis—in the search for understanding Western Arrarnta perceptions of digital drawing and how to learn communication design together.
260 7.2 Answers to the research question
How do Western Arrarnta young adults imagine and make meaning from digital drawing and communication design education?
This study found that the participating students imagine digital drawing from a relational perspective. More specifically, the Western Arrarnta young adults involved in the study imagine communication design through its ability to connect with Country, family, knowledge, history, community, lived experiences, and contemporary identities. Digital drawing in Ntaria is primarily about telling stories— communicating history, culture, and identity. Digital drawing has meaning in Ntaria through its connections, its ability to visualise, share, and pass on knowledge, to recreate and remember stories, and to express and give voice to the realities and influences of the young adults involved in the study.
From an educational standpoint, communication design education is imagined on Country, in dialogue, and through a continued questioning of its teaching and learning from a distinct cultural perspective. Communication design education has meaning by its enterprise and economic potential in remaining on Country, while introducing digital ways of working, sharing, and creating for a globally connected generation.
The participating Western Arrarnta young adults utilise digital drawing and communication design education experiences to affirm their connections with family, culture, and community to share and produce outcomes that are relevant, have value, and are meaningful within their life-worlds.
7.3 Addressing the research aims
This section summarises how each of the research aims have been addressed in this thesis.
7.3.1 Exploring Western Arrarnta perspectives of communication design
The first aim of the thesis was to explore how Western Arrarnta young adults imagine communication design. This was achieved by examining the digital drawings, design process, and meaning of design from the perspectives of 16 senior students at Ntaria School.
261 By looking at the students’ digital drawing outcomes, and listening to their stories, it was possible to explore the richness and depth of their imagining of design by examining the underlying principles of their digital drawings. Their finished drawings were collected and analysed, along with their corresponding stories and these were grouped into three core principles, and related sub-themes:
(1) Talking story
a. Remembering and telling culture stories
b. Identity and Ntaria life
(2) Sharing and connecting
a. Connecting with family
b. Sharing knowledge
(3) Newness
a. Current expressions
b. Surface styles
Through these thematic groupings, the students’ voices and digital drawings clearly articulate the principles underlying their designs, and how these relate to both Western Arrarnta social, cultural, and spiritual traditions, but also allow for explorations of contemporary identity, visual experimentation, and lived experience. The digital drawings show that, for the Ntaria students, designing is relational and connected to Country. Their outcomes demonstrate continuity with the past, connection with family and community, but also the telling and remaking of stories in new digital ways. Their digital drawings were a way of communicating culture and identity. These underlying principles demonstrate a Western Arrarnta perception and imagining that differs from Eurocentric communication design perceptions and imaginings.
Examining the students’ activities within the design workshops, reinforced through discussions and analysis, revealed five core phases in their journey to complete a digital drawing:
(1) Anma thinking time
(2) Arama to see
(3) Parnama to draw
(4) Mpaarama to make, build, do
262 (5) Marra good, finishing.
The steps and visual depictions of the students’ journey demonstrate significant insights into a distinct cultural perspective of completing a digital drawing. The results present the Ntaria design process as a form of relational connection, reflection, and practice. It highlights that design is about thinking and connecting with knowledge, giving it a form, and sharing or passing things on, but also about connecting with Country and family, and concepts of marra, or feeling good. It also indicates different perceptions of time in relation to process, and that importantly time needs to be taken purely to think, wait, and reflect before starting to visualise a design, or mark-making on paper or screen. The students’ process offers insights into how design can be imagined within cultural and spiritual practice, and how this knowledge can then be linked to ways in which the teaching and learning of communication design can be approached.
By examining meaning, or purpose of design in dialogue with the students, it was possible to explore how each Ntaria young adult imagines design within their own life-world. Our collective analysis shows how designing fits within wider social, cultural, and relational systems, and how it fulfils a social, cultural, and relational purpose in Ntaria. This purpose was grouped into three themes:
(1) Design in relation to Western Arrarnta creative practice
(2) Contemporary expressions and outcomes
(3) Knowledge, story, and design.
These themes present the meaning of design in Ntaria: that meaning is generated through a combination of drawing, learning, communicating, and sharing. Design fits within established cultural practice and has value within the community, but it also serves a purpose of being new and different, and allowing for contemporary expressions of self and identity.
The combination of principles, process, and meanings enabled the first aim to be addressed. What became clear was that students’ digital drawings and voices expose a relational and spiritual dimension to their perceptions of design. The interrelation between digital drawing, process, and contextual meaning, signify how the students perceive a Western Arrarnta imagining of design—of sharing stories, the important of new tools, and contemporary influences, but also of cultural importance and spiritual purpose.
263 7.3.2 Developing design workshops to introduce digital drawing
The second aim of the thesis was to introduce digital drawing to the young adults from Ntaria according to Western Arrarnta ways of learning. In order to understand how the Ntaria students imagine and make meaning from digital drawing, it was necessary to explore their learning journey and how design education made sense from a Western Arrarnta worldview. The students’ experiences of their design education were collected, analysed and grouped into four thematic areas:
(1) Learning new tools and techniques
(2) Experiences with vector graphics
(3) Learning on Country
(4) Ntaria design outcomes.
The analysis evidences how communication design education produced new kinds of experiences and knowledge that in turn lay the foundations for the relationship between culture, Country, and design. Their voices also show how digital tools are enabling new forms of cultural production and outcomes, and design learning has relevance for them through Country, family, community, and digital technologies.
Based on evidence from the students’ experiences, the original design education framework was re- evaluated—moving away from a static framework for the teaching and learning of design, to present a more dynamic and fluid approach to questioning and designing in dialogue together. Revealed here is how a continued questioning of how we were working together, and a locally informed approach, guided by Aboriginal perspectives and pedagogies provided an engaging and meaningful approach to communication design education in Ntaria.
This questioning and dialogue, as a way of learning design, worked to highlight that when the links between content and context are acknowledged and supported, design learning is enhanced (Kral & Schwab, 2012). The design workshops situated learning that was connected, while being relevant and valuable, to community—learning here is context embedded and locally situated. Design education in Ntaria demonstrates the need for interconnectedness and relational aspects of place, meaning, being, change, and of agency.
264 7.3.3 Understanding the value afforded through design
The third aim of the thesis was to understand the value of digital drawing and communication design education according to the Ntaria students’ perspectives and priorities. Examining value was firstly underpinned by the capability approach as an evaluative tool to assess the value of digital drawing and design education from the perspectives of the participants. Although limited in its meaning and relevance in Ntaria, the capabilities identified in relation to design were:
(1) The capability for voice and representation
(2) The capability to maintain knowledge and identity
(3) The capability for staying on Country.
The findings express how design-based learning positively impacted the students as individuals, but also their place within the community, and their responsibilities in relation to passing on cultural knowledge and remaining on Country.
The value of design in Ntaria was then examined more holistically from their perceptions of the design workshops and outcomes. The findings detail the value of the project in relation to students’ sense of wellbeing. This was identified by the participants within three interrelated themes:
(1) Social: Agency and pride
(2) Economic: Engendering enterprise
(3) Cultural: Transferring knowledge across generations.
The analysis enabled an exploration of how the Ntaria young adults are visualising positive representations of self through digital drawing, connecting to cultural knowledge, and sharing their stories across generations. The findings show the importance of relationships and relatedness on gathering rich and meaningful data in relation to value. The findings thus point to the value communication design education can have in local communities when it is tied to meaningful community outcomes—youth are engaging in learning and sharing stories in digital ways that positively affirm their contemporary Western Arrarnta identities.
265 7.4 Limitations of the Study
Largely, the limitations of this research stem from the notion that I have only been able to understand the Ntaria students’ perceptions of digital drawing and communication design education from my own cultural paradigm and worldview, and within the time constraints and parameters of the thesis. While my own understandings have been radically changed throughout the course of the research, there is an implicit bias and way of understanding the world that I bring to the research.
Additionally, this research focuses on a specific community and presents insights on the teaching and learning of digital drawing specifically in Ntaria. Yet, argued within the thesis is the need for localised communication design education and embedding teaching with on Country learning. Further discussion on the limitations of this research is presented in two sections. Firstly, issues that arose during the project are addressed, before turning to specifically address methodological issues.
7.4.1 Issues that arose during the project
While the participants were adept at learning digital drawing techniques on the iPad, as well as being regular users of their own mobile devices, there was evidently still a ‘participation gap’ in relation to their use of digital technology (Berry & Schleser, 2014). Berry and Schleser argue this gap points to ‘limitations Aboriginal youth experience in acquiring appropriate education and training compared to their non-Indigenous peers’ (2014, p. 95) and I would argue also extends to the students’ access to technology such as iPads, laptops, and desktop computers.
Living within an Aboriginal community, student access to education and training is highly limited, matched by the majority of senior teachers within the school being trained as primary school teachers and lacking specific knowledge around visual arts, design, or technology education (ACARA, 2017). It was clear the students were keen to engage in learning activities in the classroom utilising digital technologies, but their participation was reliant on teachers delivering appropriate education and training specific to these tools and mediums. Craig Watkins argues that without ‘adult support, mentoring, or scaffolding of rich learning experiences’, young adults will struggle to access and gain equal opportunities in the digital age (Watkins, 2011, p. 95). Limitations around engagement of Ntaria School staff in the program centred around their lack of confidence is using iPads and computers, and their lack of teacher training in design, creative industries, and communication technologies. The research, framed within the school environment was therefore limited by the abilities of the teachers assisting in the classroom. This also meant students’ access to
266 design learning was only possible when I was present within the community, and able to support the students in their learning.
Additionally, students’ only access to these technologies is within the classroom, and while adept at using mobile phones, they require time to participate in learning how to work with different digital devices. So while the participation gap exists within the classroom, it also exists within their home environment. Therefore, their experiences of digital drawing were limited to the classroom. Their perceptions of digital drawing and communication design education were contextually limited, due to the context of the Eurocentric schooling environment and perhaps reflect the spaces in which they were created. Participation with these digital technologies out of the classroom, in private or home environments (and the related additional time this would have provided for students to experiment and work on their designs) is likely to have produced different results.
This was also true for limitations around language. The Ntaria young adults’ perceptions of design would have also been much richer had I understood and spoken Western Arrarnta. Thus, there was a disconnect in the teaching of design in English and the students making sense of it within Western Arrarnta language. While the teaching aids in the classroom helped to translate, there were limitations in how design concepts and process were communicated from English to Western Arrarnta, and in reverse, with many words, ideas, and phrases not having direct translations. I recognise the limitations that differences in language and understanding pose. Additionally, within the classroom teachers placed emphasis on the students learning English literacy and numeracy, but not all design activities required English-based literacies. Therefore, a current limitation of the design workshop delivery was its reliance on English language and not taking a bi-lingual approach to design education. This would also be true of our relationships—speaking Western Arrarnta would have also made it easier for me to become known, and while our relatedness grew out of our time spent together, it only scratched the surface in comparison to being able to communicate together in Western Arrarnta.
However, this research, and the historic case studies of introduced visual tools (see Appendix 1) show that through developing relationships, spending time, and engaging in a dialogic and questioning approach to learning together, can create agency around the use of introduced tools. Our time together enabled me to get to know the Ntaria young adults in the everyday and allowed the students space to share their voices within this research. The students’ narratives reflect the importance of not just locally-informed design education but having access to it within Aboriginal
267 community schools. As on Country design is imperative, so too is providing design education programs within Aboriginal communities. This also means modifying and adapting the expectation that learning needs to be linked to literacy and numeracy and be conducted in English language. As the design workshops were delivered within the structure of a thesis timeline, there were additional limitations around discussions of the value and importance of design for the students and the broader community over the long term.
7.4.2 Assessing the methods
As touched on throughout this thesis, the methodological tensions inherent in this study meant the project, its timeline, my role, and how the data was analysed have all adapted to the realities of Western Arrarnta life. I have attempted to address the limitations of my research design through first describing how the research was conducted to ensure ethical standards, as well as what changes were made through the emergent journey of this research. This section describes how I have ensured trustworthiness during fieldwork and the validity of the research. It also presents the critical reflections and limitations associated with the conduct of this project. In achieving transparency, it was important to document in a clear and transparent manner how the collection and interpretation of data evolved through each stage of my fieldwork, what resulting limitations of the methodology and data collection methods were encountered, and what the benefit of the research was to the students.
The consent process
Ensuring consent for this research meant meeting the requirements of university ethics, but more importantly, upholding an ethics of being accountable to the students at Ntaria. Denzin notes that participatory research ‘makes the researcher responsible not to a removed discipline, but to those he or she studies’ (2003, p. 258). Smith further enforces, ‘consent is not so much a given for a project or specific set of questions, but for a person, their credibility’ (1999, p. 136). I was therefore responsible, not just for the students and their parents/guardians to consent to being part of the study, but responsible as a person, for my conduct both in and out of the research context.
I obtained ethics approval for the study after visiting the community in September 2017, ensuring early on there was support for the project, and the research topic was refined around the interests and aspirations of the students at Ntaria. There was a university requirement to have all consent forms signed by parents or guardians of the participants before beginning the design workshops.
268 While this was completed following university procedure, it was at a time when I had no relation to the students or their families, they had no idea of the outcomes that would result from the workshops, and therefore what they were agreeing too. This process of consent lacked understandings of the importance of relationships and relatedness within a Western Arrarnta world, and highlighted a limitation with the Eurocentric academic approach to consent.
Other researchers engaged with informed consent within Aboriginal contexts share similar experiences (Kennedy, 2013; McGrath & Phillips, 2008). As Annie Kennedy states, ‘I found that for Western Arrarnta people in this Central Desert context, reading a research information sheet and signing a sheet of paper had little meaning and was counterproductive to building the relationships that underpinned the study’ (2013, p. 377). This counterproductive nature was also true of obtaining consent from the parents and guardians of the study participants. Consent forms were handed out individually at each participant’s house or place of residence, often taking days to track down their location and find the relevant family member or guardian. Although accompanied by a teacher, nobody knew me, trusted me, or understood what I was doing there. Additionally, the parent/guardian permission for their child to participate did not seem sufficient to cover the resulting designs produced, their related stories and knowledge, and the rights to publish these designs.
As Indigenous researchers point to the need of the research to be accountable to those who were part of the research (Bishop, 2005; Marker, 2003) I sought extra permissions directly from the students about their individual digital drawings, stories and transcripts, as well as parent or guardian permission (showing the wider community what had been produced from the workshops) following the research. This ensured the students agreed, for each particular work and its meaning, to appear in this research, but also that my interpretations of what was said, or drawn, were correct. I knew that I would be held accountable for ensuring proper treatment of each student’s work. Therefore, it was imperative that the students agreed on how they would be represented.
Obtaining meaningful consent was an ongoing, iterative process. The students and their parents/guardians needed to be comfortable with me and feel reassured I would not share anything outside the community, if they so wished. Consent also required the students to know what I was saying about their design work and their design process, which also acted to validate the interpretation of the data. Formal consent was linked with each design work produced, and agreements to use the meanings emerging from both the visual data and interview transcripts.
269 Being there and forming relationships of trust was crucial to the informed consent process within a Western Arrarnta context. Signing a research information sheet had little meaning, to either the parent/guardian or student. Consent was more an individual decision to share the stories and meaning of their work with me, and later the meaning of these narratives and my interpretations of them. Trust in me was built over many months, in very informal ordinary ways. This process has enabled me to be confident that the participants in this research have not presented designs, stories, or knowledge to me that is sacred or not to be shared.
Consent, usage, and nature of confidentiality associated with the use of the students’ digital drawings in this study was also an ongoing negotiation. At the outset of the study it was unknown what outcomes would be produced, what the students would create, or what stories they would tell. The confidentiality of the students in this thesis was nuanced. Many were proud of their designs and wanted to be acknowledged for their work, voice, stories, and knowledge. This was an ongoing, participatory approach, with confidentiality ultimately handled in a different way to what was set out at the beginning of the research. Other negotiations were made as relationships of trust developed. With each completed design, the students and their parents or guardian were asked their verbal consent to include the work in the research and were given a choice if they wanted their real or chosen name associated with it. This also occurred with all interviews and photographs, with students and their families shown transcripts or photographs and were asked their consent to include the faces, voices, stories, and knowledge within the thesis, and again what name (if any) they wanted attributed to it. This resulted in many of the students’ real names being included within the thesis. The students, their families, and the community were consistently told I wouldn’t use their work anywhere else (outside of the thesis) without first seeking permission.
Trustworthiness and authenticity
Indigenous scholars make it clear non-indigenous researchers must be able to answer to ethical interests about trustworthiness and authenticity of the study. This includes how the research remained accountable to the participants, and how it represents the experiences and knowledge of Indigenous peoples (Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008). Firstly, discussion around trustworthiness of the study is included, followed by questions around its authenticity.
Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) seminal work, which has formed the basis of quality criteria in qualitative research suggests trustworthiness within qualitative research can be established through assessing
270 the following elements: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. How each of these elements were addressed in this study, is detailed below.
‘Credibility’ refers to demonstrating participant trust in the research processes and findings (Stringer, 2007). Stringer points to a prolonged engagement over time and a persistence of observations to ensure credibility. This was achieved in this study through an engagement with the community over three years. The time spent in the community was essential to this enquiry, as it provided the time to develop deep seated perceptions and understandings from the participants, and for them, the time to express these perceptions, opinions, and evaluations.
As action research outcomes apply to particular people and place of a study, the ‘transferability’ of the research is concerned with the outcomes of the study having relevance elsewhere (Stringer, 2007). Though an analysis of literature, and the methodological and theoretical positioning of the research, it is clear there is potential to apply the outcomes of this study to other Aboriginal educational contexts as well as broader education and training avenues, policy, and government practice. Presenting the research both to the academic community (through conference presentations and journal articles) and the broader local community outside of the school context (through community engagement) further supports the notion that those outside the study can determine its relevance.
‘Dependability’ and ‘confirmability’ refer to the rigour within the research. I have detailed the research stages and data collection methods undertaken in line with university requirements and described my methodology in Chapter 3. These steps are additionally documented within the ethics applications in Appendix 2 (see 2.1 for ethics report), consent documents (see 2.2 for consent form and 2.3 for information sheet), and supporting communication from Ntaria School (see 2.4 for school support letter). Field data was documented in transcripts taken from digital recordings and associated notes, observational notes taken from journal entries, and from digital files from iPads and laptops containing the students’ design work (See Appendix 3 for student portfolios and excerpts from sample interview transcripts).
Authenticity relates to assessing the conduct and outcomes of the study, as Guba and Lincoln describe ‘in establishing authenticity, researchers seek reassurance that both the conduct and evaluation of research are genuine and credible not only in terms of participants’ lived experiences but also with respect to the wider political and social implications of research’ (2005, p. 207). There are five
271 key criteria for ensuring authenticity as identified by Guba and Lincoln: fairness; ontological and educative authenticity; and catalytic and tactical authenticity. Each criterion is described below.
‘Fairness’ was achieved through the representation of the students’ perspectives, attitudes, outcomes, styles, and processes, ensuring their representation and voices within the research analysis and findings (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). A considerable amount of time in the field allowed many opportunities to take note of the participants’ views, aspirations, and perspectives. As I could draw directly from conversations with students, and contextualise them within their design process and practice, their views could then be represented throughout the research process. The rich and reflective data from my time in Ntaria therefore contribute to the study’s authenticity. This is also due to my presence there, showing care and acting through a Western Arrarnta cultural practice of relatedness, enabling people to feel comfortable and safe when talking and sharing with me.
‘Ontological and educative authenticity’ is concerned with helping develop a deeper understanding of the context being studied for the participants. Through ongoing interviews and repeatedly ‘checking in’ regarding transcripts and consent, the research process enabled the students to become more aware, and act as co-enquirers of the project as we engaged in learning design together. Additionally, through the development of the students’ design outcomes into an enterprise, the participants were able to hear other perspectives, from customers, Western Arrarnta artists, family, and community. This expanded their understandings of what value design could have, and what a creative design enterprise could look like in Ntaria.
‘Catalytic and tactical authenticity’ refers to action research (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). The study created the capacity to enable participants to be empowered to act and to take action through its research design, based within ‘action research’. The research facilitated the development of a student-run enterprise through design workshops, and while the students’ perceptions of design was the concern of the research, their actions in creating a design-based enterprise from their design skills, validated the authenticity and value of the study. In hearing what the students have to say around digital drawing and communication design education, there is inherently practical knowledge about how current perceptions and approached might be reshaped. The research enabled this action through listening to the voices of the students, supported by its research approach and appropriate methodology.
In relation to limitations around trustworthiness and authenticity, this was about making strategic choices as to whether and how to engage and questioning my own space for participation as a
272 researcher. Researchers working within an outside culture ‘are always already embedded in issues of value, ideology, power, desire, sexism, racism, domination, repression, and control’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 11). It is thus important to recognise the Eurocentric bias that I bring to my research and what limitation this had on my ability to engage as a researcher within an Aboriginal community. This particularly centred around my engagement with the participants and the influence this has had on the data gathered. As I occupy a place of social and academic privilege, an ‘outsider’ and member of the colonising group, I had to remain reflexive about my role, and know when to engage the participants in the ‘research’ and when to allow them space, when to ask questions, and when to remain silent.
The benefit of the research to the students
The Ntaria young adults engaged in the design workshops, our conversations, and associated data collection methods because they enjoyed digital drawing. It was something they were good at, their families and community were proud of the work they were doing, they could share both old and new stories, and engage with digital technologies. Engaging with digital drawing enabled the students to express their contemporary lives and to share their pride in their culture, Country, and contemporary identity.
While the majority of research on Indigenous youth focuses on a negative portrayal of disadvantage in relation to learning and education gaps (Altman & Fogarty, 2010), barriers to the uptake of technology for Indigenous learners (Watson, 2013), the digital divide (Dyson, Hendricks, & Grant, 2006), adverse consequences of rapid sociocultural change (Brady, 1992; Robinson, 1997), and behaviour issues, school attendance, and intergenerational change (Eickelkamp, 2011); the Ntaria students presented a counter narrative, positively affirming their identities through design. The research enabled them to share positive aspects of their lives, their knowledge, and cultural strength.
The research also enabled a space for students to express themselves. The participants’ digital drawings present their lived realities and Aboriginality as a positive experience. As Inge Kral discusses, Indigenous youth engaging with technologies are ‘portraying their lives, their cultures and their countries to each other, to other Indigenous people and to the world, in a way that would have been unforeseeable a generation ago’ (2010, p. 41). Through their digital drawings the Ntaria students confidently express their lived experiences, their individuality, influences, and sources of creativity—their identity and relation to culture. The design workshops enabled the students to
273 experiment with digital forms of self-representation and control these representations, which in turn encouraged and reinforced their explorations of self.
7.5 Insights and foresights
This study is relevant to a number of topics, which for example include:
• educational strategies with Central Australia,
• educational policy,
• the teaching of vector-graphics,
• the technological skill development and digital literacies of Aboriginal youth,
• the lived experiences and developing identities of Aboriginal youth,
• the use of the capability approach in remote Australia, and
• the effectiveness of Aboriginal pedagogies.
However, in this discussion I focus on three main areas as they directly relate to the aims of the thesis and its central research question. Following the contributions to knowledge this thesis has provided within these areas, broader implications are discussed, before presenting recommendations for potential areas of further research resulting from the study. The three areas discussed are:
(1) Design Research: centering the voices of the students, by embodying a strenght-based and Youth Participatory Action research methodological approach to design research offers insights into how to do research with Aboriginal young adults.
(2) Communication design practice: through the examination and subsequent analysis of the students’ drawings, and perceptions of design, the thesis offers a distinct cultural imagining of communication design, which adds an important, diverse voice to current understandings of the discipline.
(3) Communication design education: the examination of communication design education through an Indigenous lens offers an approach for learning design together on Country, which would be beneficial for design educators, and educators working within Aboriginal communities.
274 7.5.1 Design Research
Insights
Aboriginal youth have often been denied the opportunity to share their voices, perceptions, and knowledge within design and research domains, and to represent themselves in the ways in which they want to be represented. The lack of academic discussion of Aboriginal youth voices within design and education prior to the research perpetuated their marginalisation in decisions about their education and design futures. This void of understanding was addressed through the research, contributing new knowledge on how Ntaria young adults perceived digital drawing, and how it could have value and meaning for their futures. It additionally offers insights into how to do research with Aboriginal young adults and how to work with Aboriginal communities.
Seeking to privilege young Aboriginal voices and concerns within the study required creating a research space to facilitate and together learn about Ntaria design. This in turn meant rethinking the roles of researcher and participants, and embedding Indigenous research approaches within the research process (see section 3.2.1, Chapter 3). The Ntaria young adults involved in this study are living in a time of great change within their community, transitioning into a digital era while remaining responsible for the ongoing traditions of Western Arrarnta culture. They are important knowledge holders for the future, and I knew limiting their role to just being ‘participants’ in a research process without getting to know and understand who they are, their dreams and aspirations—and what they bring to the research process—would be offensive to them and community.
Most participatory action research emphasised the need for research processes to engage in action or collaboration with participants, to enable the views and stories of those being researched to be heard clearly and without misinterpretation. Yet, what it meant to engage with the Ntaria young adults in a design research context is worth unpacking, as it was something that grew from and was responsive to the values and ethos of strength-based approaches and YPAR. This research offers insights into the ‘doing’ of participatory research.
Currently, how participants are engaged and defined within design research remains largely ambiguous—whether they are students, participants, co-researcher, co-designers or co-enquirers (Gibson et al. 2017). While participants were ‘students’ within a classroom environment, they were also positioned as knowledge holders and respected as teachers: we learned design together.
275 It was therefore imperative to include their knowledge within the data analysis and evaluation. This approach often conflicts with processes of design research, where the researcher engages in the evaluative process without the input of participants. The role of participants in constructing meaning though data analysis and evaluation is also often a missing dimension of YPAR, and participatory action research more broadly (Gibson et al., 2017; Welikala & Atkin, 2014). Whilst initially I had not planned for the Ntaria students to be involved in the data analysis phase of the project, our collaborative experiences meant I had to re-position myself within the research space, to be reflexive, and move forward to a space where I could incorporate participants’ interpretations and analysis of data. I also underestimated just how rich this process would be. Hall (2014) refers to these experiences as ‘disruptive.’ That they enable Indigenous views to operate more fully, taking a more important place in the processes and analysis of research work, and thus validating research findings in more representative ways. Our collective analysis process provided a space for deeper meanings to emerge and presents an approach for how design researchers can apply a strenght- based approach—prioritising Indigenous voices and narratives throughout the whole research process. Although language realities impacted on our collective analysis (see section 7.3.1), within the circumstances, this collaboration provided meaning within our conversations.
Working to prioritise the students’ voices and remaining reflexive around my role within the research permitted the representations of their own lives to be seen, heard, and made known. Additionally, it was only through the freedom of feeling comfortable and having the agency to share, without feelings of ‘shame’, that the students’ perceptions and aspirations were truly shared, and the relations between Indigenous wellbeing and design could be discussed and identified. By giving students a voice to speak to their own perceptions of design and aspirations for their futures, enabled by a strength-based and YPAR methodology, the value and meaning of design in Ntaria emerged.
How I engaged with the students together in the research can be summarised as:
1) Relational: This related to ideas about connectedness and getting to know each other. Allowing time (from a Western Arrarnta perspective) to establish relationships and trust was important for how we learned design together. It meant allowing space for people to feel comfortable. This experience of communicating meant the students felt involved and valued. Basing decisions around these relational values provided direction for how the research was conducted.
276 2) Reflexive: This meant rethinking things, changing approaches, thinking about our different knowledge, and seeking ways for multiple ways of being, knowing and doing to be met. It meant creating spaces and finding ways for Ntaria perspectives to emerge through the dismantling of Eurocentric understandings of digital drawing and communication design education.
3) Dialoguing: This required patience, flexibility, and persistence. It meant allowing time for people to engage when they felt ready, and it provided a way for the students’ knowledge to be heard, valued, and thus included in the research. This allowed our learning to be embedded in experience and engaged within the local context. It enabled stories to be shared.
4) Questioning: Only through continually questioning why we were doing things in a certain way, and how we were learning design together, were Ntaria perspectives able to emerge. This enabled an approach that welcomed different ways of doing things, not always understanding them at first, but allowing time and space to explore, and continuously talking about how we were doing things and why.
Foresights
The findings from the research strongly conflict with Eurocentric perspectives of design research. Undertaking participatory and collaborative research in Indigenous communities requires a critical rethinking of how design engages with place, culture, and community. Presented through the research is a collaborative way of working that opens up a dialogue as to how to conduct design research within an Aboriginal community. My own transformative journey, described throughout the thesis in the Interludes, raises questions as to how design research can move beyond the central place of the ‘expert designer’ and predetermines methods, outcomes, and evaluative approaches as a ‘design researcher’. A collaborative approach, whereby each participant has a voice across the methods employed, outcomes, and evaluation has proven to be beneficial to a participatory design research process.
The research also presents insights into the meaning and relevance of data gathering techniques within Aboriginal communities. The format of design workshops presented a flexible method that was suited to introducing digital drawing within the reality of community life. Yet there were a number of pre-conditions. Teaching required time, care, and trust. On Country approaches required a
277 reactionary approach, patience, and a commitment to deep listening. Students were positioned as knowledge holders, and the technical skills of digital drawing were seen as facilitating spaces to tell stories and share this knowledge. Additionally, conversational interviews and spaces where students could share their knowledge orally or visually provided much richer results than methods that required written English, such as surveys. Where our conversations held meaning and were relevant to the students’ relations and aspirations, the resulting outcomes presented greater insights.
This thesis presents many new questions for design research and how researchers can engage with diverse cultural perspectives. Introducing new tools and techniques within Aboriginal creative expressions drawn from disciplines such as product, fashion, web design or service design could be approached in a similar way to the introduction of digital drawing—continuing the progression of technological use and uptake for a new digitally-engaged generation of young adults growing up in an Aboriginal community. As Steven Heller expresses: ‘a great designer is one whose imagination transcends the existing tools to create opportunities for innovation’ (2016, p. 6). Incorporating Indigenous perceptions of design across different disciplines could help facilitate the natural evolution and cultural relevance of design research outside Eurocentric understandings.
7.5.2 Communication design research
Insights
Prior to the research, the current literature around cultural approaches to communication design was thin and largely dominated by Eurocentric perspectives. This thesis contributes knowledge to the communication design discipline by adding a rich cultural voice—specifically a Western Arrarnta perception of communication design principles, process, meaning. This thesis presents a re- imagining of communication design and presents a way of conceptualising design based on Western Arrarnta principles. It offers a foundationally different perspective on the practice of communication design.
This thesis presents the thinking, values, considerations, and aspirations of the Ntaria students as they engaged in digital drawing, revealing a relational and spiritual dimension to communication design. In Ntaria, design was about telling stories, about connecting with Country, family, and contemporary identity. Here, design is an interconnected practice based on values. The students don’t speak about their individual ‘design projects’ or how they reflect ‘design standards’. Instead, their designs represent relationships to who they are, where they live, and where they come from.
278 The Ntaria perceptions of design offer a vastly different view than current Eurocentric understandings, and raise questions around how Eurocentric designers might apply the principles of ‘telling cultural stories’, ‘showing Country’, ‘sharing knowledge’ or ‘connecting to family’ and what that would look like. Design in Ntaria is interconnected, and this research explores how these principles are lacking within current Eurocentric design—highlighting how narrow, current understandings do not include principles such as these within current views in dominant Eurocentric literature, practice, and societies.
If we claim design is fundamental within a society, different cultural worldviews and ways of practising design are essential. Victor Margolin asserts there has been ‘no fundamental reinvention of design practice in order to play an active role in the culture of sustainability’ and design practice must be rethought ‘in order to find ways of engaging the massive problems that confront humankind’ (1998, p. 91). This research questions if the Ntaria design principles could be what communication design needs to become a more inclusive discipline, and address many complex issues facing our societies and cultures. Again, Margolin declares ‘The world’s design needs are evident, but the plan for reinventing the design professions is not’ (1998, p. 92).
The value of the study in relation to communication design lies in the potential of the knowledge presented here, of Western Arrarnta perceptions of design to reshape current understandings of what it means to design, and how place, relationships, and community impact on the process, outcomes, and meanings. By giving voice to a Ntaria youth perspective of communication design, the study presents a different approach, far removed from commercial clients, budgets, and briefs. In looking at what the Ntaria young adults have produced, and by listening to what they have to say, this study offers an alternative path for communication design.
Foresights
From shifting current Eurocentric understandings of what communication design is, its process and meaning, presents opportunities to explore design beyond current definitions. Further study on how diverse Aboriginal cultures perceive design could lead to broader acceptance of Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge within communication design research, and work to broaden the scope of knowledge on current understanding of design principles and process. This could investigate Western Arrarnta design principles and process, and test if other Aboriginal communities have
279 developed a similar way of designing—undertaking a broader survey on cultural approaches to design practice and process.
Alternative research and analytical approaches could further explore the connectedness and interrelation of communication design with other storytelling modalities within Aboriginal communities. The students’ digital drawings, like many forms of Western Arrarnta cultural expression are a unique form of storytelling that can incorporate speech, song, gesture, words, signs, time, place, performance and drawn graphic symbols to create different forms of meaning (Green, 2016; Munn, 1986). A multimodal analytical approach may provide insights into the complexities of communicative systems and modalities within Western Arrarnta visual and digital communication (Green, 2016).
While the economic dimensions of design within remote communities was not the focus of this research, nor was it quantified or measured, it is clear there is a core value of communication design to positively impact on the commercial futures of the students. Further study could investigate communication design as a pathway into working within the creative industries or within a creative enterprise or microbusiness model. Hunt and Smith (2006) argue the social aspects of an enterprise— how it fits within the wider structures of the community and cultural responsibilities—are crucial within Aboriginal contexts:
It is these social aspects, and social capital in particular, which become critical in the success of an enterprise be it the Aboriginal community Council, a community cultural centre, an environmental management venture, a multi-media centre, or a traditional knowledge capture program (Hunt & Smith, 2006, p.10).
While the Ntaria design pop-up shop was a small-scale venture, and while the pathway to meaningful outcomes and design-based enterprise may be slow, each new design, and each learning experience further developed the students’ skills base while contributing to their education, knowledge, and enterprise potential over the long term. Furthermore, introducing skills in digital design and web design could additionally be utilised as a pathway to global commercial participation, and claiming online spaces ‘on Country’. Further study could investigate the long-term potential of communication design as a pathway to commercial participation within Aboriginal communities.
280 As the possibilities for employment in the Ntaria community are limited, the Ntaria young adults may have to face hard choices in regards to education, training, work, and ultimately, autonomy. Yet the results from this study point to communication design as being a culturally relevant source of income generation. As telling stories is central to the student identities, commercial engagement with communication design needs to reflect this relational aspect of designing and connecting. Further study could investigate how the Ntaria young adults might apply their design skills within a design practice and engage with commercial opportunities.
7.5.3 Communication design education
Insights
Current literature on design education within an Australian high school context remains embedded within Eurocentric concepts of teaching and learning, and show a gap in literature around Aboriginal approaches. Within the available literature, teaching communication design generally follows a skills development program from basic student to design expert, increasing expertise through design briefs and projects mirroring studio practice. Yet in Ntaria, the teaching and learning of design focused on connecting to Country, and telling cultural stories—relating to the students’ perceptions of the value and importance of design within their community. This presents an approach in conflict with current Eurocentric understandings.
This thesis presents knowledge around centring design education on Country, and employing a dialoguing and questioning approach to teaching and learning design together. The approach developed over time as a product of our collective learning, and our processes of working together.
The design workshops presented knowledge around how the role of storytelling within a design context supports the understanding that telling stories is central to Aboriginal learning and culture (Yunkaporta, 2007). Creating digital drawings was a way for students to engage with these stories and knowledge, and to represent them in their own way, and in a contemporary context. It acted to renew stories and knowledge for their current generation, while keeping them alive for the next. While expressing their contemporary identities, the students are by no means rejecting their responsibilities to honour and share their traditional knowledge. While working in a digital medium, students can articulate their own identities and remain firmly grounded within Western Arrarnta practices and responsibilities.
281 Evident throughout their responses is the way they were able to position design in relation to cultural values, beliefs, and wellbeing. The students’ voices present knowledge of how their experiences with design education were linked to notions of agency, pride, and wellbeing, particularly of a social and spiritual nature.
The insights on the approach to design education are not meant as a guide for how to ‘do research’ within Aboriginal schools, which would go against our learning that approaches need to be contextualised through Country, co-created through dialogue and ongoing questioning and reflexivity. Yet different approaches and strategies to the teaching and learning of digital drawing will be useful in contributing to broader learning within the design education community, and to teachers, lecturers, and students of communication design as they may use a variety of approaches in their learning journeys. By understanding the new knowledge learned through learning design together, guided by Aboriginal pedagogies, others may discover the possibilities afforded by working from a YPAR and strenght-based perspective, and applying them in a collaborative way within an educational context. It is hoped the impact of the design education program will flow far beyond the pages, requirements, and timeline of this dissertation.
Foresights
The findings of this research suggest how design is taught and practiced depends on context and relationships. The implications of these findings for design education point to the possibilities of rethinking communication design education in Australian schools. As discussed within the research, this thesis does not set out to create a framework for design education, or to suggest a curriculum, but to presents possibilities, and a way of approaching design education through questioning, dialoguing, teaching, and learning together.
There is potential to expand this research to explore perceptions of design education from other Aboriginal or cultural groups within secondary schools in Australia. The comparison of the research findings with other young adults may lead to more diverse, local perspectives of design education or approaches that work better with young adults outside of a specific Western Arrarnta context. The value of design could therefore be explored for other young adults, who may have different ways of expressing their identities and connecting with culture.
How design process then informs the teaching of communication design could also be used to expand understandings of how communication design is taught and practiced across diverse
282 cultures. As design pedagogy rests on how design is viewed and understood (Abdulla, 2018), understanding diverse Aboriginal perceptions and processes points to how design can move forward in transforming design education and practice.
Broader acceptance of the research findings within other Aboriginal schools could involve testing the approach to design education developed in this thesis. Further study could demonstrate the value of design education within other Aboriginal community schools. This feedback could also be used to point to the value of developing and including design education within secondary schools in the Northern Territory.
The deployment and application of the findings could further investigate similarities or differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, how they learn, how they engage in design, and if on Country approaches are a relevant and effective way to teach design within broader secondary schooling environments. There is also the potential to expand this research to investigate international Indigenous perspectives of design education, and whether there is value and meaning in introducing digital tools within other diverse cultural and visual expressions.
7.6 Final reflections
Throughout my time living and learning together in Ntaria I have understood the importance of listening, that being uncomfortable leads to new ways of seeing and understanding, that there are times when to ask questions or be silent. Most importantly, I have learnt the strength inherent in the Ntaria young adults, in their voices, stories, and culture. As a result of this research, the strength and power is also inherent in their digital drawings and their perceptions of communication design.
Through this local study of highlighting the perceptions of 16 Aboriginal young adults, findings emerged in rich and vivid detail that have much broader value implications than just within the community of Ntaria. The students involved in the project have been able to consistently communicate new ways of seeing and understanding communication design process, practice, and education. These findings could have so many important repercussions for design, in how we can learn from and apply these perspectives. This research highlights the boundaries of current approaches within the communication design discipline, and how they could be greatly enhanced by listening to the voices of 16 students from Ntaria.
283 By listening and documenting the students’ voices and perceptions of digital drawing and design education, Western Arrarnta perceptions emerged, presenting a narrative of the principles, process, and meaning of communication design. Their voices also informed an approach to design education, centred on Country. Learning design together reinforced the importance of relationships, of dialogue, of reflexivity, and continued to question how we were doing things and how design learning could take place in Ntaria.
The Ntaria young adults clearly valued their design outcomes and learning. Importantly, design enabled them to connect to Country, story, family, and community. It was meaningful as a practice, enabling the renewal of traditional knowledge while also enabling them to represent their contemporary identities in a digital medium. As the students have learnt to draw in a digital way, tell stories, express themselves, acquire new technological skills and techniques, they have gained confidence, solved problems, and created new knowledge. The ways in which the Ntaria young adults engage in and learn digital drawing emerges as a process where they are also reshaping their representations of self, in socially affirming and positive ways.
For the Ntaria young adults, embedding Country (and staying on Country) is essential to their design education and their potential futures in design. The alignment between design and culture could allow for future linkages of on Country responsive education and employment or enterprise pathways within design. To close this dissertation, the following statements—in both Western Arrarnta and English—encapsulate the knowledge and learning garnered, and how we ultimately came to learn and document the Ntaria young adults’ perceptions of design together:
Atha katjia kngarritja etnanha iPad-la ntulya mpaaritjika kaltjinthaka.
I taught the big kids how to draw on the iPad.
Etna yinganha kaltjinthaka, Pmara-iperra pa mpaarangaranga etnakanha.
They taught me about the Country and their ways of doing things.
284 Epilogue: Running a Design Workshop out Bush
Figure 7.1: ‘Learning together on Country.’ Taking the troopy to Haasts Bluff, August 2019
Walking across the red dirt playground, it’s 8:30am on a chilly three-degree morning in Ntaria. A handful of barefoot kids warm themselves in the first patches of sun. I pass through the gate to the senior school where boys pass through ceremony to become men, and girls sneak off to do their hair and paint their nails in the women’s room.
The bell rings. There’s one student here. Hey! Let’s go. Grab the troopy, let’s go round town. We rumble up the Toyota, heading past the shop, across the town’s only two bitumen roads and onto the dirt. We attempt to pry the students out of bed and into the classroom. Go out to Kaprilya, we hear from the backseat. Then go to Ipolala. Can we go to Finke? Let’s just go to town.
285 Now there’s four kids in the back. We drive back around the community. Try and wake them up again. There’s a sorry camp on, we hear. We’re men now—we don’t come to school. We’re sleeping.
It’s now 10am. There’s country and western blaring through the car stereo while outside sounds of seemingly infinite dogs, mothers’ shouting, children crying and cars rumbling past, creaking from too many trips on a rough road or perhaps taking those speed bumps too fast.
Ayy! Stop the car. Langwa! The kids tumble out, searching for bush tucker. They disappear into the horizon. We wait. The heat is starting to bake and the wind and dust slowly turns my skin and hair into a dry claypan.
We bundle back into the car, and finally to the classroom. Now, it’s time to put on the kettle. Make a cuppa. The laughing and screaming in Western Arrarnta language starts to settle. I’m drawing my culture. My Country. Designs emerge, the dominant landscapes seen from the troopy this morning appear on the screen, stories about collecting bushfoods, drawings of langwa.
These morning journeys were a constant reminder to let go of my preconceived ideas of how research worked and what design education looked like. I will also miss them. A methodology emerged from these trips, requiring a commitment to developing relationships, trust, and respect. This in turn required creativity in approaching the requirements of a PhD, as these relationships take time and flexibility to develop. It challenges academic perceptions of the research process, to let go of control and just ‘be there’.
What I found about running a design workshop program in the bush was that it requires deep listening and observing, confronting your privilege, stepping out of your own culture and personal comfort zone, waiting, ignoring criticism, making friends, building trust, building on existing strengths, learning the language, turning up the stereo, making cups of tea, heading out in the troopy, and eating langwa.
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312 Appendix 1: Visual Tools and Aboriginal Communities
A1.1 Introduction
Indigenous visual culture is full of energy and power. Constantly evolving, it spans a diverse range of surfaces, tools, mediums, and temporalities. Designs, patterns, and stories take many forms that are reinforced and replicated through traditional ritual, dance, song, body painting, rock engravings, and sand drawing. Arguably, the oldest ongoing traditions of art in the world (Morphy, 1998). Yolngu artist and land rights activist Wandjuk Marika, describes Indigenous visual culture as ‘… the design or symbol, power of the land, the land is not empty, the land is full of knowledge, full of story, full of energy, full of power’ (Marika, 1986). Indigenous knowledge and story has engaged with the world through visual culture—further reimagined within new applications, tools, and ways of creating. Contemporary mediums and formats, notably watercolour and acrylic painting, radio, film, and new media, have continued to reinforce cultural and spiritual values. The continued embedding of stories, values, messages, and lessons within introduced tools and mediums highlights that Indigenous visual culture is alive and inseparably from everyday life (NGA, n.d.). Despite significant diversity and change, Indigenous visual culture is connected to the past while being engaged with the present. These actions are lively, positive, political, social, and visual. Indigenous visual culture does not stand still but is always in a state of transformation.
This research is informed by the introduction of other visual tools in Aboriginal communities and the resulting applications which have created vibrant new forms of expression. As such, this appendix provides a foundational background for introducing digital drawing in Ntaria by exploring the history of introduced visual tools and mediums within Aboriginal communities and the resulting developments that have occurred as a result.
The introduction of visual tools has been mirrored across a range of Aboriginal communities, with non-Indigenous artists, anthropologists and teachers introducing tools and mediums to well- established and vibrant Aboriginal creative practices, generating significant impact, and leading to recognition, economic independence, and self-determination for many communities. Through exploring how visual communication has changed in Aboriginal community contexts, I address how
313 introducing digital drawing can engage and enhance the cultural practices of a digitally-engaged generation of young adults growing up in an Aboriginal community.
A number of case studies are detailed below that chart different introductions and developments. They predominantly focus on the Central Desert region of Australia (although reference to other remote communities in the Northern Territory are included), and on post-colonial introduction of visual tools. The focus here is exploring how these visual tools were introduced, and identifying approaches to their teaching and learning.
A1.2 Watercolour painting
In the 1930’s when central Australia became more accessible by road, European artists began to visit the area, drawn to the spectacular MacDonnell Ranges and desert landscapes. One such artist, Rex Battarbee made a significant connection, most notably through his training and friendship of Albert Namatjira and family in Ntaria through their adoption of the Western medium of landscape watercolour painting.
The journey of watercolours in Ntaria began in 1934. After seeing Battarbee’s work and expressing his interest to learn watercolours, Albert Namatjira was provided with some paints in exchange for his services as a cameleer. Two years later, in 1936 Battarbee returned, to find Namatjira had not been able to learn how to use the paints on his own (Hardy, Megaw & Megaw, 1992). As Namatjira was again employed as a cameleer for Battarbee on his return in 1936, the trip also included more structured watercolour lessons. Edmond (2014) raises the question of ‘what exactly did Rex teach Albert over these trips?’ (p.146). Unfortunately, Battarbee did not record anything he showed Albert to do, nor does he recount what he might have said to Albert about technique or method. We are left wondering how Batterbee introduced watercolours in Ntaria?
The relationship between Battarbee and Namatjira is crucial when considering the impact and enduring legacy of Western Arrarnta watercolour landscape painting. Batterbee’s long-term involvement, support, and guidance highlights the trust and friendship at the centre of the watercolour movement. Kleinert argued in 2002 that Batterbee should be interpreted as a ‘facilitator’ (Kleinert, 2002). Others have described Battarbee as a ‘catalyst’ and it was Battarbee's friendship with Namatjira that was responsible for creating the first school of Indigenous art in Australia
314 (Smith, 2006). It is clear that respect, trust and relationships were instrumental—creating the conditions for collaborative learning.
Figure 1: Gloria Pannka, Areyonga Paddocks, 2016. Watercolour on paper. Gloria Pannka is the granddaughter of Albert Namatjira and a member of the Hermannsburg School of Watercolours represented by the Iltja Ntjarra, Many Hands Art Centre. Today the Hermannsburg School is recognised as a major contemporary expression in Aboriginal Art (Iltja Ntjarra, Many Hands Art Centre, n.d.).
The recent re-assessment of the Hermannsburg school of painting has emphasised the landscapes were not mere copies of a European art form, but were in fact important statements about Western Arrarnta spiritual links to country (Hardy, Megaw & Megaw, 1992). The success of the watercolour movement (See Figure 1) can in part be attributed to the Western Arrarnta people’s enduring adaptability and engagement with visual practices.
A1.3 Crayon drawing
Historically relegated to anthropological artefacts and only recently emerging as vital contributions to Indigenous visual practice are crayon drawings. Anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt introduced drawing with crayons on butcher’s paper to the Yolngu people of Yirrkala in 1946, while
315 Anthropologist Mervyn Meggit introduced paper and crayons to the Warlpiri people in 1953. The process of pigment work is markedly different to working with crayon, yet both the Walpiri and Yolngu seamlessly translated their inherited mythological and spiritual designs to this new medium.
In the case of the Yirrkala drawings, Ronald Berndt introduced crayons and paper, as bark paintings were too difficult to transport. He additionally provided an assortment of colour crayons, in which this seemingly unintentional act, provided an extensive range of colours to the Yolngu who had previously only worked in the available pigment colours of browns, reds, yellow, black and white.
The crayon drawing tool required artists to make new choices—crayons were different from the fine lines of crosshatching and hairbrush used for bark paintings (see Figure 2). Morphy describes how the Yolngu used the potential of crayons to produce bold blocks of colours and geometric elements in alternating colours, creating a new dynamism in the works (2013, p. 31). Melinda Hinkson, in discussing the Walpiri drawings (see Figure 3), raises the notion of a distinct Walpiri approach to drawing itself, to question a distinct way of looking, of seeing, and a distinct cultural attitude to images (2013, p.5).
Figure 2: The Yirrkala crayon drawings. Left to right: Mowarra Ganambarr Ḏätiwuy Thunderman and shark site at Arnhem Bay 1947, lumber crayon and chalk on butchers paper; Nänyin’ Maymuru Djarrakpi 1947, lumber crayon on butchers paper; Mundukul Marawili Fish trap at Baraltja 1947, lumber crayon on butchers paper. RM and CH Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of WA, Perth
316
Figure 3: Larry Jungarrayi, Yarripirlangu, 1953-54. Meggit Collection, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS, n.d.)
These two collections highlight the integration of different tools within an established practice, but there is little discussion of the development of drawing following the ethnographic work of Berndt and Meggitt. Did the Yolgnu see any benefit to crayon tools and paper medium? Aesthetic changes or developments, following the introduction of crayons were never tracked, yet the Warlpiri and Yolgnu drawings serve as interesting case studies in the introduction of new creative tools in Aboriginal community contexts.
A1.4 Acrylic painting
In the early 1970’s school teacher Geoffrey Bardon spent 18 months living and working in the community of Papunya (Bardon & Bardon, 2006). Living there, were a range of desert Aboriginal people, including Pintupi, Luritja, Warlpiri, Arrarnta, and Anmatyerre, relocated to Papunya in the late 1960s under a government policy of assimilation—forcibly moved and traumatically displaced from their own traditional lands (Wroth, 2014).
Bardon began his relationship with Papunya through the local school, employed as an art teacher. Noticing the children playing with designs in the sand, Bardon explains: ‘I watched the way their drawings in the sand followed what these children whispered and clapped and the symbols and track marks they made (Bardon & Bardon, 2006). Through art lessons within the classroom, Bardon
317 encouraged the children to share these stories, once drawn in the sand, to be drawn and painted. Adult members of the community began to take notice (Bardon & Bardon, 2006, p.11). As community members became aware of what was happening within the school grounds, they in a sense, created their own opportunities to tell their stories, to create and paint.
Figure 4: Kaapa Tjampitjinpa in front of the Honey Ant mural at Papunya School, Septermber 1971. The image appears in Tjungunutja, from having come together. Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Bardon’s friendship with the men who would paint a mural at the school was crucial. He notes ‘without the trust of so many knowledgeable and intelligent men, that Western Desert painting might have been very different, or not at all’ (2004, p.23). The mural (see Figure 4), a defiant symbol of Aboriginal identity surviving in adversity, inspired immense interest in the community (Bardon & Bardon, 2006). Soon many other Elders introduced themselves to Bardon and asked for art materials so that they could begin to paint, gathering together either in the art room or outside his flat.
During his time in Papunya, Bardon encouraged artists and Elders to transfer their local cultural traditions and stories from sand drawings, rock paintings and body markings into acrylic paintings produced on portable canvas, hardwood surfaces, as well as buildings. Using paintbrushes on vertical walls took some getting used to, as the painters were not familiar with the mater—the paint would drib and dribble (unlike an ochre pigment applied to a surface). After the mural, Bardon provided the men with painting boards and later with canvas. Importantly Bardon believed the survival of the Western Desert people was in—and through—their visual language (Bardon & Bardon, 2006).
318 Bardon’s actions were imperative in encouraging and enabling the creation of new creative forms, not only in terms of the preservation of cultural traditions, but through the sharing and sale of these artworks, that in turn activated autonomous economic development (Wroth, 2014). Bardon, like Batterbee before him, was the link between painting and the economy. The fast economic impact was also crucial for the success of acrylic painting (Bardon & Bardon, 2006). In addition to income it provided dignity and self-esteem, and allowed the Pupunya artists not just to develop their own styles but defiantly mark their own sense of self and culture (See Figure 5).
Figure 5: Watunuma, (Warturnuma), (Flying Ant Dreaming)', Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, 1976. The double bars represent the ancestral Flying Ant's wings and the concentric circles refer to the ant's resting places and their earthen 'homes' (NGA, n.d.).
A1.5 Television
Eric Michaels's work with the Warlpiri people at Yuendumu introduced video production as a 'cultural technology'. His work began in 1982 as the acrylic art movement from the Central Desert was in full swing. In 1983 a TAFE (Technical and Further Education) supported program was helping to produce local sporting videos in the community. This brought about a widespread interest and it
319 soon become common practice for dances to be filmed and later shared (Michaels, 1986, p. 58). Video, supported by both Michaels and Warlpiri adult education officers, then became used to tell oral histories and stories, sporting event, community meetings and traditional ceremonies. Michaels’ relationship with Francis Jupurrurla Kelly, an adult education officer, was crucial in the development of this medium.
Michael’s describes how Francis Jupurrurla Kelly appropriated the medium of video and TV for the maintenance and rejuvenation of traditional 'oral culture'. He argues that Warlpiri TV is not simply a difference in the 'use' of a neutral technology— it is an identifiably different 'technological invention' (Michaels, 1986). This further reinforces the notion that communities are not just using tools in new ways, but are creating spaces of entirely new outcomes and practices.
A1.6 New media
Jennifer Deger, an Australian anthropologist and filmmaker worked with the Yolngu in Gapuwiyak, Arnhem Land over several years, arriving in 1994 to introduce and utilise radio and video equipment, in line with the emergence of Aboriginal broadcasting. Deger was concerned with documenting, promoting and supporting Aboriginal people to tell their own stories—to both Indigenous and non- Indigenous audiences—on their own terms. Her role and relationships with Bangana Wunungmurra, and the wider community were crucial. Hearing about Deger, Yolngu leader, Bangana was interested in how he could tell cultural stories through the technology mitigated by Deger. Deger describes him as ‘adroit and sophisticated at manoeuvring through culture(s)’ (2006, p. 19).
Deger describes the ‘newness’ within Indigenous new media lies in the connections that the work makes to the ‘deeper’ connections of culture and country to produce a mutually enlivening relationship between the new and the old. She describes how ‘these technologies both provoke and enable putatively non-traditional forms of cultural production’ (2013, p. 357). Deger’s case study offers a positive dialogue—that different means of creativity can create distinctive Indigenous forms of cultural production and social connection. Further, through working with communities on different mediums, such as video art, it can both provoke and enable non-traditional forms of cultural production that is in both parts enriching and stimulating to both Indigenous participant and non- Indigenous collaboration.
320 A1.7 Pottery
Found naturally within the Central Desert, clay was traditionally used for medical practices and for making coloured ochres. It is a seemingly fortuitous timing of events that led to Naomi Sharp an experienced ceramicist and ceramics teacher, developing the ceramic movement at Hermannsburg. In 1990 Sharp ventured out to Hermannsburg to conduct what she thought would be a three-week ceramics-instruction workshop. Sharp's three-week stint at Hermannsburg turned into sixteen years. As Sharp remembers:
When I arrived, I found that the local people no longer knew anything about pottery making, so it was left to me to decide what would be suitable for them. Firstly, I decided on the red clay instead of white or grey. The red colour is familiar to them and matches the colour of the country. I decided they needed to use a tribal, indigenous day-making method that suited their lifestyle. So, rounded, handmade, coiled pots fitted those requirements … As they were already proficient watercolourists, it was obvious that they should keep within their own artistic tradition and paint figurative pictures of their country (not dots) on the pots. (Sharp, quoted in Nicholls, 2013, p. 135).
The tools and teaching techniques employed by Sharp are worthy of note, introducing new concepts with an understanding of the inherent capacity of the Western Arrarnta women and the creative precedents that have come before her. This introduction, although Sharp describes as ‘obvious’ was a conscious decision to match a new tool to current creative traditions and to representing their country and culture.
The medium of pottery provides Western Arrarnta women with agency within contemporary community life, expressing their own political and social concerns through their choice of imagery and influenced by the enduring creative capacity of the community. The Hermannsburg Potters succeeded in grafting the aspects of life that they most value—their land, country, family, and relationships with others (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous} onto the introduced medium of ceramics, transforming this activity into a tradition (See Figure 6). Finally, and not incidentally, the enterprise provides local Western Arrarnta women with the self-esteem of operating from an economic base.
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Figure 6: Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters exhibition. A selection of pots made by the Hermannsburg Potters depicting key moments and Indigenous players in the history of the Australian Football League (AFL). (NGV, 2015).
A1.8 Digital tools
Arts and cultural development organisation Big hART developed the The Yijala Yala Project from funding by Woodside-operated Pluto LNG, a large mining organisation which under the Commonwealth government, is required to support Indigenous conservation in locations where it operates (Big hART). The project made cutting edge digital tools and mediums such as virtual reality and interactive comic books available to Aboriginal school students for the first time as part of a school holiday program in community. The outcome of the program, was NEOMAd, a sci-fi digital comic book:
NEOMAD was … through a series of workshops in scriptwriting, literacy, Photoshop, filmmaking and sound recording over an 18-month period. These young people … assisted with the script, the dialogue and live film segments (Big hART).
Big hART explores how NEOMAD (Figure 7) is one way the thousands of years of cultural heritage are now being interpreted using contemporary tools. Although focused on interactivity and film, it offers a precedent on how digital tools are a different way of storytelling, but can also be part of
322 students own cultural legacy. One student commenting, ‘Being able to have access to these technologies living in remote communities is great and it shows what young kids can do’ (ABC, 2018). While the program relies on external funding and sits adjacent to formal schooling, it responds to the absence of digitally-based arts education within Aboriginal schools and state-based curriculum.
Figure 7: The interactive NEOMAD comic. NEOMAD is a comic series created with the communtity of Roebourne, WA as a part of Big hART’s Yijala Yala Project (Big hART)
Similarly, non-profit organisation SharingStories Foundation conducts digital storytelling workshops with remote schools to create digital media. Their website documents their process:
During the course of SharingStories workshops students listen to, assimilate and interpret in their own ways, important narratives and stories relevant to their own culture and community. (SharingStories, no date).
While their website lacks detail on the students’ involvement, specific tasks, and outcomes of the ‘Digital Sharing Stories Workshops’ their reports suggest the aim of the foundation is to is ‘to ‘share’ culturally rich media that partner communities have produced in collaboration with SharingStories Foundation, often housed in dynamic, interactive multi-touch books’ (Sharing Stories, 2018). While their focus lies on technological skills acquisition and introducing film and animation-based digital
323 tools, they importantly point to ‘pressing need for authentic, high quality teaching resources that will enable teachers to meet the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross- curriculum priority’ suggesting there is a lack of educational resources relating to digital literacy, and the documenting and sharing of cultural stories within these digital mediums (SharingStories, 2018).
Figure 8: A digital picture book developed by SharingStories Foundation. The multi touch books being created with SharingStories partner communities allow users to move between Aboriginal language, in this instance Nyikina and English audio and text versions of the story.
Similarly, Fran Edmonds (2014) documents a pilot project to develop digital literacy skills with the Bert Williams Aboriginal Youth Services (BWAYS). Edmonds details the digital workshops which again highlight a focus on telling stories through technology, with a focus on audio and film:
Over 3.5 days six young people aged 15–23, and one older participant developed their stories, working with a range of technologies, including their own mobile phones, media pads, Apple Macintosh computers and laptops. They recorded their voiceovers using digital recording equipment and uploaded images and recordings to the Final Cut Pro editing suite. (Edmonds et al., 2014, p.96)
324 These projects suggest the focus of many funding and education initiatives around the introduction of digital tools are in areas of technology, engineering, digital inclusion, and digital storytelling, rather than avenues such as digital drawing and communication design. Additionally, they reveal these need for educational initiatives to collaborate with Schools and the wider community to develop initiatives and resources that fit within the curriculum and provide useful outcomes that fit within employment opportunities within local Aboriginal communities.
A1.9 Insights
The watercolour landscapes of Albert Namatjira are an important precedent for this research, not just by their iconic place in Ntaria’s history, but also by examining the factors involved in their introduction and subsequent adoption within Western Arrarnta visual practice. Watercolours were the first European visual tool introduced within an Aboriginal community, and the conditions surrounding the introduction, ongoing use, and commercial success of the medium might be used as an example for the introduction of digital drawing in Ntaria. Understanding how and why Namatjira took up watercolour painting can work to inform the approach taken here. The collaborative role of the Victorian watercolour painter Rex Batterbee was instrumental. Notably he was an artist (not an anthropologist) and this distinction is crucial in understanding his approach to introducing watercolour landscape painting to the Western Arrarnta and his embracement by the Ntaria community. While insights can be garnered from this case study, it still remains unclear how Batterbee approached the teaching of watercolours, particularly into an established system of visual communication. As Batterbee’s approach to teaching watercolours is undocumented, it is not possible to apply his approach for the introduction of a new tool and new ways of working.
Similar questions remain unanswered with the introduction of crayon drawing. There is little evidence to training, particularly any ongoing education around the use of the tool. And while relationships were critical in the introduction of crayons, it was not a creative collaboration, or one based on aesthetic explorations. As practising anthropologists, not practising artists, there wasn’t a visual development or commercial imperative to the work. The drawings served the interests of the researchers, bundled up and taken away, and were not for the benefit of the community or any further visual or autonomous economic development.
The case of Papunya offers more insights. The introduction of painting in Papunya is characterised by Bardon’s 18 months within the community from 1971-2. An incredibly short time considering the
325 resulting breath of work that evolved. With the introduction of painting tools and mediums, there was seemingly infinite potential for renewal and reinvention of their visual language, moving from ground to canvas. Importantly within the context of this research, the introduction of painting on canvas enabled a visual re-enactment of country, and sought to enhance a sense of community and place, building resilience and pride amongst the Papunya artists. As an outsider and ally, Bardon negotiated a highly complex socio-political and cultural space to build trust, develop relationships, teach, and provide resources that could be utilised by members of the Papunya community in ways that allowed them to draw from their own spiritual perspectives and cultural practices.
Looking to the introduction of new media, the video production work of the Yolgnu highlights the enriching ability of new modes of digital communication. Although creating new forms of cultural production in Gapuwiyak, there is no detailed understanding on the future of the medium. Unlike other precedents, the economic benefits to the Yolgnu community are not directly discussed through Deger’s work (Deger, 2006). Nor do we know how the Yolgnu are currently using this medium following Deger’s departure.
In the context of this research, these gaps in understanding also flow onto educational methods and how to approach the teaching of new visual tools and mediums. In contrast, the introduction of pottery in Ntaria was based on educational approaches that made sense within the local context, drawing on place and history, but also the contemporaneity of modern community life.
Implications
The introduction of tools and mediums explored here reveal that stylistic and material changes do not necessarily imply a loss of tradition, authenticity or control. Rather, they represent new spaces of Aboriginal interests, politics, and representations of contemporary life. While cross-cultural influence is probably inevitable, it is not necessarily detrimental to Aboriginal culture. The use of introduced tools does not equate to a loss of culture, or of Indigenous traditions becoming Euro- centred. Aboriginal cultures adapt change into their existing cultural patterns, rather than adopt practices and change their traditional patterns. This can be seen not just through the use of visual tools, but also through the use of new technologies, like mobile phones and social media as well as the use of rifles and vehicles, all utilised to support cultural practices within Aboriginal communities.
326 Adapting visual tools to enhance culture, community, relationships, and collaboration evidences the enduring, imagination, adaptability, and resilience of Aboriginal communities. To understand and adopt introduced tools into visual practice, communities must be able to utilise the affordances and availability of new spaces for visual production, and to allow for a freedom to express contemporary realities. These ‘traditional futures’ must be emphasised within educational approaches, allowing for the ability to represent contemporary community life. But also to be aware that the teaching and learning of new visual tools, must be embedded within Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing.
A1.10 Conclusion
The case studies presented here offer a historical background and detail the introduction and interactions of these new ‘additions’ to visual practice within Aboriginal communities. Questions surrounding the conditions, use, and outcomes guided the discussion, including how and why these tools have used within ongoing Indigenous representation and storytelling. How this legacy and resulting questions worked to inform the approach to introducing digital drawing in Ntaria is detailed within section 3.3.1. The research approach re-interprets key findings from these cases into a structure to specifically address the research aims and question.
327 Appendix 2: Ethics approvals, informed consent, and research information sheet
2.1 Ethics approvals
The following ethics approvals were obtained for the conduct of this research:
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329 2.2 Informed consent form
Consent Form
Project Title: Exploring the use of digital design tools with young people in remote desert communities Researcher: Nicola St John
1. I agree that my child can participate in the project named above. I have read and understood the Project Information or had it explained to me in a language that I understand.
Name of Child/Dependent: ………………………………………………………
2. In relation to this project, please circle YES or NO: § My child can take part in digital design workshops in class Yes No § The researcher can observe my child learning in class and take notes Yes No § The researcher can ask my child questions about their designs and how they use iPad and computers and digitally record their answers Yes No § The researcher can take photos of my child’s art and design work Yes No § The researcher can take photos of my child in class Yes No § The researcher can use my child’s name when showing their art & designs Yes No
By answering ‘Yes’ you indicate that you: 1. Understand what your child is being asked to do because it has been explained to you. 2. Understand that your child does not have to take part and can stop at any time. 3. Understand that we will not use your child’s name unless you want us to and we will make sure you are okay with what we write. 4. Understand that only the researchers will have access to your child’s images and written information.
By signing this document, I agree to my child’s participation in this project.
Name of Parent/Guardian: ………………………………….………………………………
Signature & Date: ……………………………………………………….…………
This project has been approved by or on behalf of Swinburne’s Human Research Ethics Committee (SUHREC) in line with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. If you have any concerns or complaints about the conduct of this project, you can contact: Research Ethics Officer, Swinburne Research (H68), Swinburne University of Technology, P O Box 218, HAWTHORN VIC 3122. Tel (03) 9214 3845 or +61 3 9214 3845 or [email protected]
330 2.3 Information sheet
Project Information
Project Title: Exploring the use of digital design tools with young people in remote desert communities
Introduction to project and invitation to participate This study invites your child to participate in creative workshops at your child’s school. The project explores different ways of drawing with iPads and computers. Your child will learn new creative skills and create a range of printed items that they will be able to take home and keep. Participation in this study is voluntary, so it’s up to you whether you would like your child to take part or not. For your child to participate in the workshops, a Consent Form must be signed by a parent/guardian and returned to the school by 1st May 2018.
How it will work I will work with the teachers at Ntaria School to create fun, hands on activities for your child as part of their normal classes. The school teachers will make sure you understand what your child will be doing at school. I will visit the school before Term 2 and talk to your child about things they would like to learn and what kinds of art and design they like. This will help me teach your child things they are interested in. I will then come in Term 2 and run the workshops. At the end I will talk to your child about what they have learnt and what they liked about the workshops. I will share and discuss the findings with the school at the end of the project and they can give you a copy of the final report if you would like one.
What does participation involve? If you agree for your child to participate, he/she will be asked to: • Participate in a series of design workshops during normal class time in Term 2, 2018 • Be observed drawing and using technology in normal class time • Answer questions and give feedback about using iPads and computers to create digital art and designs • Have some of their work and creative process recorded This project will take place in the classroom as part of normal school activities, and facilitated by a teacher and teaching assistant at times agreed upon by the School. Your child is welcome to participate in any of these sessions.
Participant rights and interests - Confidentiality The information that your child gives will be used for the sole purpose of this project. I will keep all files safe so that other people cannot read them. Everything will be locked up and I will destroy the files at the end of the project so that your child’s words are not used by anyone else. I will not use your child’s name or names of your family (unless you want me to) in any creative outcomes related to the project. The students own the project work completed during the design workshops. If the students do not wish to keep their project work it will be destroyed following strict University protocols.
Participant rights and interests - Risks & Benefits/Contingencies/Back-up Support Your child’s participation in this project is entirely voluntary. You and your child are free to withdraw your consent and participation at any stage during or after the study without question or explanation. If any part of the project makes your child feel uncomfortable, they can withdraw from participation at any time without any questions being asked. Their decision to participate in the study or not to participate, will in no way impact upon their assessment by the teacher. If they feel uncomfortable at any time during this project, they can speak to their normal teacher or any other staff member at Ntaria School.
Project interests There are no external parties with any financial or other interests in this project, which is being undertaken to extend knowledge and not for profit.
Further Information about the project – Who to contact If you or your child would like further information about the project, please do not hesitate to contact: Samantha Edwards-Vandenhoek | Academic Director External Engagement, School of Design, Swinburne University of Technology | E: [email protected] P: 03 9214 6728
331 2.4 School support letter
332 Appendix 3: Ntaria Design portfolio
The portfolio of the Ntaria senior students documents the digital drawings and accompaning stories of the young adults involved in this research. It also includes progress work, unfinished work, and hand drawings. Alongside the drawings, photographs of the students are included, as well as individual narratives and responces to interview questions. Each student who participated in this project received a copy of their design portfolio.
Please contact the researcher for a copy of the Ntaria Design portfolio.
333 Publications and presentations
St John, Nicola. (2018). Australian communication design history: An Indigenous retelling. Journal of Design History, epy014, https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epy014
St John, Nicola. (2018). Designing on Ntaria country: Telling stories with new tools. Visible Language: The journal of visual communication research, 52.3 December 2018.
St John, Nicola. (2018). Desert drawing: From pigment to (Apple) pencil. Proceedings of DRS2018: Catalyst. Design Research Society, 2018 Conference, Limerick, Ireland.
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This research highlights the boundaries of the current communication design discipline, and how they could be greatly expanded by listening to the voices of 16 students from Ntaria.
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