Decolonising design practices and research in unceded Australia: reframing design-led research methods.
- Publisher:
- UCL Press
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Special Issue Publication - AMPS - Out of the Studio and into the Field, 2021, (Special Issue Out of the Studio and into the Field)
- Issue Date:
- 2021-12-30
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Much of design teaching, learning and research in Australia is determined by Eurocentric traditions and the ongoing colonial project. In this context Indigenous Peoples continue to experience erasure, silencing and appropriation of practices and knowledges. The Visual Communication Design Program, situated in the School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), is committed to disrupting this trajectory. In this article we are describing an immersive model that seeks to challenge the role of the design educator, creative practitioner, and researcher on unceded Gadigal Lands in the city of Sydney, Australia. We reflect upon the challenges of facilitating Visual Communication Design and Emergent Practices, for a third iteration as an online studio experience, during COVID-19 in the context of climate crisis, bushfires, and Black Lives Matter. This iteration is the result of three years of deep collaboration with Local Elders, Indigenous scholars and practitioners. The research focussed studio for 180 final year visual communication design students is led by Local Elders, cultural and research advisors with the support of studio leaders. The consideration of design led research methods through a process that infuses Indigenous research principles builds on the longitudinal research into the role of the emplaced designer in Indigenous-led projects on Country. Our studio titled In Our Own Backyard provides students with strength-based design capabilities and understandings of the principles of United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples Rights (UNDRIP), Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights (ICIP) and the Australian Indigenous Design Charter. As a studio experience, the aim is to create conditions which spark possibilities for re-orientation towards relational and respectful negotiation of difference, and the capacity to action Indigenous self-determination in complex practitioner scenarios.
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