What is Designing with Country? Danièle Hromek and Sarah Lynn Rees yarn about the big question.

Get started by reading the session description below and watching the trailer – Sarah on sitting with Country – and additional clip.

preview

1 formal point on completion of the CPD questions.
Refer to the Learning Objectives for Deadly Djurumin Yarns.

pricing details

$60 General
$40 Parlour Collective
$30 General concession (on request)
$20 Collective concession

Note: all ticket prices are per person. We offer additional group discounts for Parlour Collective practices as follows:

  • 10–19 tickets – 5% additional discount 
  • 20–49 tickets – 10% additional discount
  • 50+ tickets – 15% additional discount

Make sure you are logged in to your account to access all Parlour Collective pricing. Group discounts are applied automatically. 

Proceeds above the costs of delivering the DD Yarns program support the work of Deadly Djurumin. 

If you represent an Aboriginal organisation please contact Parlour to obtain access at no cost.

What is designing with Country?

Designing with Country. Country Centred Design. Connecting with Country. Indigenising the built environment. All these phrases have been thrown around over the last few years, but what do they really mean? What is designing with Country? In this yarn, Sarah Lynn Rees and Danièle Hromek discuss their experiences, concerns, challenges and loves when it comes to bringing culture, community, kin and Country into the centre of the architecture and design process.

“One way of positioning Designing with Country is actually thinking about Country as your client.”

Sarah offers practitioners tips on how to take first steps with Designing with Country. Danièle talks passionately about the need for all designers to “genuinely make connections with Country… It’s desperate. We can’t do ‘Business as usual’ anymore”.

Time and again, Sarah and Danièle see designers making well-meaning attempts to consider Country, but going no further than adding a yarning circle and a piece of art. As Sarah emphasises, while these are important cultural practices, there is much more to Designing with Country than artworks and surface treatments. It is complex. It requires a deeper understanding and respect for culture and community and place.

Both speakers offer generous and valuable advice on how to “go on the journey”, learning how to connect authentically with Country, feeling it and sensing it and experiencing it in a completely different way.

So, what is the number one priority when Designing with Country? How do we rethink the engagement process and make it fairer for all involved? How do Danièle and Sarah bring the complexity of Designing with Country into a system that doesn’t allow for it? How have they found space for it? What successes have they had? What change needs to happen? How do we convince clients that things have to change?

For answers to these questions and more, it’s well worth watching the video!

The Deadly Djurumin Yarns are presented as a collaboration between Parlour and Deadly Djurumin. This session was recorded online on Friday 3 May 2022.