Respecting Country | Thursday 24 October 2024, Naarm / Melbourne

Strengthening relationships and understandings with Traditional Custodians through a culturally responsive design approach

This event was created in response to numerous and ongoing requests from practitioners and clients to better understand how to embed First Peoples recognition and enable self-determination through culturally responsive approach to design.  

Led by AILA VIC's Connection to Country committee members, this unique event has been curated for built environment practitioners and clients who are already working with Traditional Custodians and are seeking to better understand and implement culturally responsive approaches to their engagements and project outcomes. Through bringing practitioners and clients together to listen and directly converse with Traditional Custodians, we can collectively learn to work in more culturally responsive ways that will result in richer outcomes for the project, the community and Country.

This one day event has been curated to support landscape architects, urban designers, architects, planners, clients and other relevant professionals to:

o Strengthen and build stronger relationships with First Nations people & communities, some who are leading voices in design
o Understand how to best embed First Peoples recognition and enable self-determination in the design process 
o Encourage practitioners to invite/attend with clients (current & potential future) and together:
o Listen and engage in conversation with First Nations leaders who hold key government and state-wide body advisory positions 
o Better understand the importance, positive impact and opportunities of early engagement on projects (which in turn saves valuable project time spent for both client and consultant) 
o Develop an understanding of potential culturally responsive design approaches which genuinely collaborate with First Nations people, understanding Indigenous perspectives and ways of working (protocols and processes)
o Continue to build on conversations and learnings developed following the symposium – where the consultant and client can support each other to achieve greater positive outcomes 

Following the highly successful 2016 AILA Vic C2C Connecting to Country Symposium and the sellout 2022 AILA National ‘Country’ Festival, join us for an immersive, interactive day of deep listening, conversations and learnings in a safe space whilst being able to seek guidance and ask direct questions of First Nations people.

Rare opportunity for clients 

Relationships between clients and First Nations representatives are the most important ones, although clients are often the last ones to speak directly with the the community of whose Country their project area sits within. 

This symposium is a rare opportunity where clients, together with consultants and other built environment practitioners, are invited to come together in an immersive and informative day of conversations. Attendees will listen to and be able to directly converse with First Nations people, leading to deeper understandings and providing valuable guidance to ongoing approaches in relationships and projects, resulting in better outcomes for all – the project, community and Country.

Format

 Pre-cursor to symposium
To ensure attendees are able to absorb the greatest benefit from the conversations to be held, short, relevant readings and links will be shared with all registered attendees two weeks prior to the event. 
 
This will be followed up with a 1-hour online session for all attendees (consultants and clients) in the week prior to the symposium which will provide more detail and depth of understanding for the discussions that will be taking place.  This online session will also provide all attendees with an opportunity to ask or put forward questions they would like to have further explored/discussed by (and with) the First Nations representatives as part of the symposium.

Post symposium
Approximately 4 weeks following the symposium, all attendees will again be invited to a 1-hour online session where having had time to digest the information discussed at the symposium, you will have a further opportunity to ask further questions or seek guidance. The aim of this session is to invite reflection from understandings and actions undertaken post symposium, how this has aided your approach or is there a next step where you need guidance.

 

Intro to speakers
Check back for speaker bios. We will be uploading them here in the coming weeks.

 

Tickets
For more information about ticket options, please CLICK HERE.

Contact
For this event and registration queries, please contact AILA VIC at [email protected] or call 0499 713 950.

 

Respecting Country is proudly brought to you by AILA VIC and partners City of Melbourne and Aboriginal Melbourne.

         

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AILA's and AILA Victoria's Respecting Country, Innovation Symposium and associated events, will take place in Naarm / Melbourne from the 23-25 October. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong peoples and we pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
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