Australian design is 65,000 years old. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders didn’t have the written word. Everything was encoded in stories which were embedded in the land in geographic locations and in objects around us—painted onto bodies, danced, and sung. It was a multi-artform way of recording information. This allowed us to remember the vast amounts of data you need to run a good society. When you move through Country over time, you are remembering and activating that library: the Dreaming.
Connecting with Country is an invitation for all people to relate to all aspects of a place and for their lives to be imbued with a compulsion to care for it. The distinct qualities and identity of a neighbourhood are celebrated so that ‘places’ don’t become homogenous. Connecting with Country also has value drivers that will have economic, social and cultural benefits for all people, creating vital and meaningful cities and towns. This is why it is being legislated as a planning requirement in all new major developments in New South Wales.
One of the problems with the Australian identity is that we find it hard to define ourselves culturally …we are a collection of stories thrown together without authorship. But our stories are written in the land. It is when they are expressed in the arts and the built environment that we can see ourselves.
This is how storytelling operates in Aboriginal culture. Art is not decoration. It is not entertainment or a privileged pastime for wealthy people. It is a functional and vital part of life. It is our primary mode of communication for the transmission of our cultural values.
I’m really excited about what’s happening in this space. This is the start of a movement that will spread globally … we need to change the way we all see nature and change the way we see Country. The knowledge of First Nations people is now being sought after. The way we do design will be as transformational as when sustainable design came in.