In Conversation: Collective Mothering

Join curators Dr Amber Smith and Penne Thornton, alongside Ranch Pressing's Dr Sarah Jones, for a conversation exploring the ideas and research behind Collective Mothering.

While the Collective Mothering exhibition is presented at Platform Arts, this special Geelong Design Week talk brings the project's themes into dialogue, examining how caregiving can be understood as a powerful form of design that shapes social, cultural and environmental systems. Drawing on the exhibition, two-volume publication and community-centred public program, the speakers will discuss matriarchal frameworks, collective care and the role of relational practices in creating more connected and resilient communities.

Challenging conventional understandings of design as object-focused, this conversation positions caregiving as critical cultural infrastructure and invites audiences to consider how systems of care influence the way we live, work and relate to one another. Accessible, thought-provoking and grounded in contemporary practice, this session offers new perspectives on design's capacity to support collective wellbeing.