2019 Landscape Australia Conference: Cultivating New Agencies

“What is your intention for being here?” N’arweet Carolyn Briggs, Boon Wurrung senior elder and chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation asked as she welcomed us to Country on that cool, autumnal Melbourne day. She called on us, the audience, to step away from “unreliable sources and books,” and learn from our environment by engaging with it through our senses. She reminded us that we, as designers of place, are “shaping culture, engaging and informing [it] and celebrating and protecting [it].” But, she continued, “I don’t see me in the city”