Designing with Country
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How can design reveal and strengthen our connections to Country?
Bringing together leading voices in First Nations knowledge, architecture and urban design this conversation will explore how pathways, trails and infrastructure can act as living cultural lines.
In conversation:
- Senior Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Joy Murphy AO
- Dr Danièle Hromek, Director and Design Lead, Djinjama
- Stas Mantzis, Design Leader, Greenshoot Consulting
- Hosted by Dr Kat Nelligan
Together, they will reflect on approaches to ‘designing with Country’ and consider how lines—whether songlines, walking trails or transport corridors—carry knowledge, memory and responsibility, and how design can meaningfully support deeper, ongoing connections with Country.
In conversation:
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Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin AO
Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin AO is a highly respected Senior Wurundjeri Elder and one of Victoria’s leading voices in cultural knowledge, social justice, land rights, reconciliation and community leadership. She is the great-great niece of William Barak, the last traditional Ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, and continues to play an important role in sharing Wurundjeri knowledge, cultural authority and connection to Country.
Across more than three decades, Aunty Joy has contributed significantly to Aboriginal affairs, cultural education, the arts, equal opportunity and reconciliation. Her work has helped strengthen understanding of Wurundjeri culture and supported more respectful relationships between First Peoples, government, institutions and the wider community.
In 2006, Aunty Joy was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for her service to the Aboriginal community through significant contributions to social justice, land rights, equal opportunity, art and reconciliation. In 2002, she received the Victorian Aboriginal Women’s Award in recognition of her long-standing involvement in Aboriginal issues. -
Dr Danièle Hromek is a Budawang/Murramarang/Dhurga/Yuin – Burrier/Dharawal woman. She centres Country in her design process for it to be the driver for the design of the built environment. Working at the intersection of architecture, urban design, performance design and fine arts, Danièle is a spatial designer, cultural advisor and researcher. Danièle’s research is grounded in her cultural and experiential heritage. It contributes an understanding of the Indigenous experience and comprehension of space, investigating how Aboriginal people occupy, use, narrate, sense, dream and contest their spaces. Danièle is director of Djinjama, offering cultural design and research.
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Stas is a talented and passionate architect with diverse experience across a range of scales and typologies. He currently leads Greenshoot’s Conceptual Design for the interpretation of First Peoples cultural knowledge and its translation and incorporation into the built environment.
Stas has taught at RMIT University in Melbourne for 25 years, leading architectural design studio classes across both Bachelor’s and Master’s programs and supervising final-year students. In recent years, his studio classes have collaborated with First Peoples Elders and community leaders to develop community-led projects. Through these collaborations, he fosters meaningful engagement, translates design concepts, and emphasises reciprocity in the design process. In 2023, Stas won the Eleanor A Bourke RMIT Teaching Award 2023 for Indigenous Education. -
Hosted by: Dr Kat Nelligan
Dr Kat Nelligan is a proud Gamilaraay woman and Lecturer in Music Industry in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Her research examines music’s role in mental health and wellbeing; Indigenous storytelling through music; and music as resistance to colonisation. Her academic career began with a PhD on Lady Gaga, and her book, Brand Lady Gaga, is out now via Bloomsbury Academic. She is a songwriter, musician, and electronic-music artist who produces music under the name of Zaffiri.
Designing with Country artwork by Emmy Webbers.
