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Alison Page is a descendant of the Dharawal and Yuin people and is an award-winning creative at the forefront of the contemporary Australian Aboriginal cultural movement. She is a leading force in the Australian design scene and has an extensive career spanning design, public art, exhibitions and urban design.
Her career began in the late 90’s working in architecture and interior design in Australia’s first Aboriginal architecture group Merrima. Her practice expanded to converge urban design, sculpture and film. Her projects include Wellama (2019), a permanent film installation at Barangaroo, The Message (2020) film installation for Endeavour 250 exhibition at the National Museum of Australia (NMA), and The Eyes of the Land and the Sea (2020) sculpture at Kamay Botany Bay National Park. In 2022 she created the film experience, Ochre and Sky for the Great Southern Land exhibition at NMA and in 2024 completed Burbangana, a collection of film and sculptural works for Liverpool Hospital. She is currently working on a number of permanent sculpture projects in Sydney, including the new OneCQ address at Circular Quay, the redevelopment of the David Jones building, the Sydney Fish Markets, Westmead Children’s Hospital, M6 Parklands, and Bondi Pavilion.
She is currently Associate Dean (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement) at UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, and a member of several cultural boards including the National Australia Day Council, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, and the Australian National Maritime Museum.
She is the founder of the National Aboriginal Design Agency and Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance. In 2015 she was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia Hall of Fame and in 2022 was the Interior Design Excellence Awards Gold Medal winner. Alison was a panelist for eight years on the ABC television program The New Inventors, which showcased Australian innovation. In 2021 she co-authored Design, Building on Country with Paul Memmott, published by Thames and Hudson Australia as part of their First Knowledges Series.
Alison co-creates with Aboriginal communities, organisations and cultural practitioners, to bring the power of storytelling to public spaces primarily to awaken the memory of Country. She is currently the Designing with Country consultant for White Bay Redevelopment (Placemaking NSW), Me-Mel (Goat Island) Masterplan (NPWS), Circular Quay (Transport for NSW), and Macquarie St East (Property NSW) and is creating a Designing with Country Institute at UTS.
Deep engagement with the right people is essential for meaningful place-based storytelling and successful Designing with Country projects. To understand the local nuances and to identify the appropriate knowledge holders, we believe that local people should be engaging with local people.
Engagement may include facilitating workshops and individual meetings with the local traditional owners (Communities of Country) and other stakeholders such as Aboriginal tourism, education, ecology, organisations and art/design (Communities of Interest).
The workshops will respect the layers of storytelling and knowledges that emerge from this consultation and respect Indigenous Intellectual Cultural Property. Stories that relate to Country, traditional knowledges and Creation mythology will be properly researched and attributed.
Our engagement builds on the long-term partnerships that exist between the client and the local Aboriginal communities and galvanises plans to deepen and strengthen these connections.
Discussions about economic, environmental, social and cultural opportunities can be a part of the Designing with Country discussions. This may relate to how the custodianship and caring for Country could intersect with cultural activations and educational activities; how artists, storytellers and performers can be involved; and how Aboriginal people can be empowered through the process.
That is why co-creation with communities is an essential part of the Designing with Country process and it happens at various stages of the development. It realises the potential of Aboriginal storytelling in the interpretation of projects.
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BREVILLE ABORIGINAL CULINARY JOURNEY RANGE | a unique collection inspired by the world’s oldest living culture.
In 2006, Alison Page and Richard Hoare, Breville’s Design and Innovation Director, began a conversation about bringing Indigenous art to life on products. Ten years later, Alison has curated a line of kitchen appliances that combines ancestral Australian art and food culture with the best of contemporary design.
Working with artists Yukultji Napangati, Yalti Napangati, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri and Lucy Simpson, the appliances offer an invitation to experience, celebrate and be part of maintaining the world’s oldest living food culture while giving back to the artists and communities who have shared their art and stories for the collection.
Each artist owns the copyright for their work, which is exclusively licenced to Breville for an Aboriginal Culinary Journey range. They receive a royalty for each product produced. Breville is donating 100% of profits from the sale of the ‘Aboriginal Culinary Journey’ range to create opportunity for Indigenous Australians.
ZAKPAGE
ZAKPAGE is a creative practice founded by Australian artists Alison Page and Nik Lachajczak in 2015, working across film, sculpture and design to tell stories connected to place. Their work explores the convergence of film and design to create place-based, immersive storytelling experiences that speak to traditional knowledges, ceremony and ritual, truth-telling and its impact on the Australian identity.
MONDIAL NEUMAN
Michael Neuman had been thinking about a collection of contemporary Aboriginal jewellery for five years before contacting designer Alison Page following a broadcast of The New Inventors, on which Alison was a regular panellist. Two years later Mondial Neuman and Alison Page launched garungarung, the Diamond Dreaming collection.
Although a designer for 10 years, Alison had never turned her hand to jewellery design before. Since graduating from the University of Technology in Sydney in 1997 with a degree in Interior Design, Alison had spent much of her time working on building and public art projects within or for Aboriginal communities. But the conceptual switch wasn’t hard. She says, “Good training lets you ask the right questions as to how things are made”.
How fundamental those questions are and how successful a close collaboration between jeweller and designer can be, is underscored by ‘Totem’, the design that took first prize in the 2008 Eternity Diamonds Diamond Design Award held by the Jewellers Association of Australia.
Alison was able to draw upon her own story in designing the Diamond Dreaming range. Her years of interior and architectural design work up to then had been “Interpreting someone else’s story: their totems and their communities”. With Diamond Dreaming: “For the first time, I could ask myself what my story was”, and use elements of that story that go back to her ancestral La Perouse, overlooking Botany Bay.
UTS DESIGNING WITH COUNTRY INSTITUTE
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Background | Details |
| Present Position | Managing Director, Alison Page Design Pty Ltd |
| Educational and Professional Qualifications | Bachelor Design (First Class Honors) UTS 1997 |
| Â | Australian Institute Company Directors, Graduate 2012 |
| Â | MURRA Indigenous Business Masterclass, Graduate 2013 |
| Relevant Experience | 2024: Director, Alison Page Design Pty Ltd: Urban Design, Public Art, Cultural Development |
| Â | 2015-2024: Managing Director, Zakpage Pty Ltd: Film Production, Art, Urban Design |
| Â | 2008-2015: CEO, Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance |
| Â | 2004-2011: Panellist, ABC TV The New Inventors |
| Â | 2000-2008: Director, Alison Page Design |
| Â | 1997-2000: Designer, Merrima, NSW Government Architects Office |
| Current Board Memberships | 2024 – : Director, National Trust of Australia NSW |
| Â | 2022 – : Board Director, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust |
| Â | 2022 – : Director, Aboriginal Hostels Ltd |
| Â | 2019 – : Director, National Australia Day Council |
| Â | 2017 – : Councillor Australian National Maritime Museum |
| Â | 2009 – : Director, Ninti One Ltd |
| Â | 2017 – : Chairperson, Ninti Pty Ltd |
| Â | 2015 – : Director, Zakpage Pty Ltd |
| Former Board Memberships | 2021-2023: Board Director, Art Gallery South Australia |
| Â | 2013-2017: Director, Indigenous Land Corporation |
| Â | 2011-2012: Expert Panel for the Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Peoples |
| Â | 2009-2017: Director, CRC Remote Economic Participation |
| Â | 2006-2012: Museums and Galleries NSW |
| Â | 2009-2011: Australian Museum Trust |
| Â | 2010-2011: Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast |
| Â | 2009-2011: North Coast Institute TAFE Council |
