Listen in on this affectionate conversation between Alison Cleary and Sarah Lynn Rees – close friends and total forces for good – as they discuss what motivates them at the 2019 Melbourne Summer Salon.
Our conversationalists for this episode are Sarah Lynn Rees and Alison Cleary, both Parlour directors and wearers of many hats. Sarah is a Palawa woman, a lecturer at Monash University, a practitioner and Lead Indigenous Advisor at Jackson Clements Burrows Architects and curator of the BLAKitecture series at MPavilion. Alison is a broad-based management consultant, a successful lobbyist, advocate, communicator and trainer with a passion for facilitating positive change.
Alison and Sarah began their friendship as mentor and mentee. They start this lovely conversation by talking about how their backgrounds shaped their path and what makes them happy – from swinging on trees, to going back to nature, to Yo-Yo Ma. Discussing Australia’s Indigenous history and colonisation, they look at the meaning of heritage and the challenges that are ever-present in the architectural landscape.
This session was recorded live on Wurundjeri Country at the 2019 Melbourne Summer Salon at the Melbourne Brickworks Design Studio. Organised Justine Clark, it was supported by Parlour Partner AWS. Photographs: Alex Salem.