Decolonising Design In Practice
Event description
As practitioners who want to contribute to ethical, inclusive, equitable change, enabling futures that are non-oppressive, non anti-black, and trans-inclusive, it is critical that we examine our unquestioned assumptions about the nature of our praxis. To date, mainstream design has been dominated by a focus on Anglo-European ways of seeing, knowing, and acting in the world, with little attention being paid to the honouring of indigenous knowledges and practices or alternative and marginalised discourses from the non Anglo-European sphere.
Join us for this very special event were we will hear from 3 expert practitioners discussing decolonisation and design in practice.
Anique Vered
Anique will open the evening with a presentation entitled Stepping into decoloniality: an introduction to offer attendees an accessible entry point into the decolonial landscape.
About Anique
An interdisciplinary researcher and development consultant, anique champions community development, creative programming, strategic partnerships, diversity equity and inclusion, and participatory techniques to connect people and potential. Through collaborative and feminist leadership, she applies these approaches across system change, open and decolonial research, cultural and urban development, digital transformation and social innovation.
With fifteen years experience in communities and organisations across Australia, North America, Asia, the Middle East & North Africa, and Europe; recent projects include research and content for Diversity Arts Australia's Creative Equity Toolkit, and co-editing a Special Issue on decolonial interventions with the Journal of International Women's Studies. Other collaborations span the United Nations Development Program's Knowledge and Innovation Unit, SenseLab, Concordia University, the European Commission's DG Research and DG CONNECT, NESTA, The School of Making Thinking, City of Montreal, Australia Council for the Arts, University College London, Design Studio for Social Intervention and the Museum of Contemporary Art among others.
Currently on maternity leave, anique is engaging in ‘Reproducing Difference and Intimate Othering,’ an auto-theoretical arts practice that processes becoming mother of a differently-abled child in a mixed race family. A Fellow from the Centre for Sustainability Leadership, she is also currently a member of the Division for Peace’s Learning Solutions consultant pool at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
Tristan Schultz (Relative Creative)
Tristan will share a small collection of case studies of recent professional practice-based projects that illustrate how decolonising design can be applied in social design, sustainability and place making settings.
About Tristan
Tristan Schultz is a Gamilaraay man of both Aboriginal Australian and European Australian descendant’s. He lives on Yugambeh country in the Yugambeh language region of the wider Bundjalung Nation on the Gold Coast, Australia.
Tristan is the Founder and Co-Director of Relative Creative, a Jellurgal/ Burleigh Heads Gold Coast strategic design agency. Relative Creative design communication, strategies, services, experiences and events that intersect strategic foresight and futures thinking, decolonial thinking and sustainable transitions. He collaborates with all levels of government, businesses, organisations and institutes that care for a viable future.
Tristan has a Bachelor of Design majoring in product design, a Masters of Design Futures with Honours and a PhD in Design. He has previously also been a lecturer in the design department at QCA and is Honorary Adjunct Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney in the Design School and Honorary Principal Research Fellow at RMIT, Melbourne. Tristan is one of seven international comrades in the Decolonising Design Group.
Ledia Andrawes (Sonder Collective)
Ledia will share reflections on the entangled ethics and risks of reproducing asymmetries when practicing social design. In an attempt to confront these dilemmas, she will share a set of questions that can support more honest conversations about decolonising design in practice.
About Ledia
Ledia integrates rigour with heart to co-create more equitable social futures. She’s a designer and anthropologist with a deep appreciation for lived experience and authentic relationships. Mindful of how power and privilege can influence outcomes, she is guided by indigenous knowledge and participatory practices to translate ideas into meaningfully co-owned action.
Ledia has 15 years experience leading interdisciplinary teams and co-designing with communities. She has worked with public and private sector actors on new services, strategies, and policies in 10+ countries. She is Director & Co-founder of Sonder Collective, a diverse network of 20+ researchers and designers from around the world. She is currently collaborating on what a decolonised peace building system might look like in the future.
Previously, she set up ThinkPlace’s Kenya studio and developed their portfolio of work in Africa. This includes co-designing a citizen-centred national health policy with the Kenyan government as well as re-imagining humanitarian action with the Overseas Development Institute.
Ledia holds a PhD in Anthropology, Master in Business, and Bachelor in Design. Her interest is in how design works as an agent of political, social and cultural change.
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The three talks will be followed by a panel discussion.
Social Design Sydney is brought to you by Sticky Design Studio