Increasingly throughout Australia, public events or gatherings are beginning with a Welcome to Country delivered by an Indigenous Elder and / or an Acknowledgement of Country delivered by an non-Indigenous person. In this studio we will explore what this means for the designer, here in Melbourne and in global contexts and how an Acknowledgement of Country can be expressed through and as part of your design practice.

Students will engage with cultural knowledges of the eastern Kulin nations (here in Melbourne) but contextualise this through their design based practice Acknowledgement. Students will learn how to respond to case study examples of collaborative relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous creative practitioners. Students will engage with current public discourse on race and diversity.

Your research and findings will be presented as a series of design prototypes, each building your particular design vernacular that explores your relationship to place. It is expected that students will express their knowledge narrative through media forms of their choice, that best suit their design approach.

In this studio, you will be expected to be creatively agile and test multiple ideas. You will, develop art direction and writing skills. You will need to be flexible and highly organised. You will be expected to present and critique a number or physical mock-ups and printouts on a weekly basis. You will be informed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous guest tutors. A selection of the work produced within this studio will feature on the RMIT website and form part of the RMIT's Bundyi Girri strategy (Reconciliation activity).

This studio has 3 interconnected assessment tasks that build upon each other and act as a critical dialogue with the subject matter. Brief 1: Indigenous design – discovering home pictorial exploration. Brief 2: My design practice - Acknowledgement. Brief 3: SKO – Naming and presenting my practice transformation.

http://acuads.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Designing-with-Indigenous-Nations-Studio.pdf https://ltr.edu.au/resources/ID12-2418_Deakin_Jones_2018_Guide.pdf

Designing Experiences, Designing for Social Change, Designing Disobedience