Behind the Façade: Designing with Country
Lecture and book launch
19 March 2022
2–3pm
The land, towns, and cities on which we live have always been Indigenous places, yet, for the most part Indigenous value sets and identities have been disregarded or appropriated. Indigenous people continue to be gentrified out of the places they belong and neo-liberal systems work to continuously subjugate Indigenous involvement in decision-making processes in subtle, but potent ways.
Join architect Kevin O’Brien for his lecture ‘Behind the Façade: Designing with Country’. It is drawn from his new book, Our Voices II: The DE-Colonial Project, co-edited with Rebecca Kiddle and Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart. Our Voices II documents decolonising projects that destablise and disquiet colonial-built environments. After the talk, the publication will be launched by Troy Casey, co-founder, Blaklash Creative, and available for purchase via the IMA Gallery Shop.
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Kevin O’Brien is an architect and Adjunct Professor at Sydney School of Architecture, Design, and Planning, at the University of Sydney. He directed the Finding Country exhibition, an an official collateral event in the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. The project explored the tension between concepts of Country and the colonial city, against a hypothetical 50 percent reduction in population. He also co-edited and contributed to Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture, the first publication of its kind to explore First Nation perspectives on architecture from Australia, New Zealand, and North America.
Kevin O'Brien Architects, Casino Aboriginal Medical Service. Photo: Toby Scott.
