BLAK Environment
Join us for an afternoon of workshops and conversation exploring the question: “What would the built BLAK environment look like if we allow First Nations design knowledge to lead, rather than supplement, the design process? Coordinated by Bradley Kerr (Quandamooka), Director of Winsor Kerr Architects and featuring Marni Reti (Palawa and Ngāti Wai), Kaunitz Yeung Architecture, Jack Gillmer, (Worimi and Biripi Guri) SJB Architects and Matt Muir, Monash University among others.
BLAK Environment is a collective of First Nations architects, designers and educators working to form a national conversation about where design could head if we began, not ended, with Country. Their work celebrates the cyclical nature of projects that learn from, and give back to, communities and Country, centering reciprocity, kinship and truth-telling as design tools.
At TarraWarra Museum of Art, BLAK Environment will present a workshop and conversation that repositions the role of Co-Design within Australian practice. Too often, Co-Design becomes a bureaucratic step, think consultation without redistribution. BLAK Environment seeks to demonstrate another way, grounded in the continuous cultural practice of designing with respect for Country.
Alongside the conversations, participants will be invited into workshops centred around a series of carved, etched or patinated objects, where the co-design model is inverted and participation becomes an act of expression, carving and material understanding. These objects will sit within an endemic landscape that acts as a playful instrument, with visitors invited to engage with plants as musical instruments. The workshops sit alongside conversations exploring how power, authorship and opportunity might flow differently through the act of making.
By inverting the conventional co-design relationship, BLAK Environment reimagines architecture and policy as acts of care and cultural continuity. It asks how we might replace extraction with exchange and invites audiences to experience design as a living relationship between people, place and Country.
The immersive and participatory event will take place alongside a walk on Country and a one-hour speaker session featuring Marni Reti, Jack Gillmer, Matt Muir, Simone Bliss and others.
A Quandamooka man and an architect living, working and learning on Wurundjeri Country. Bradley is an Associate Lecturer at University of Sydney and Monash University, is Co-Chair of the Australian Institute of Architects’ First Nations Advisory Committee, Victoria Chapter Council, and is curator for the BLAKitecture speaker series, and a regular contributor to articles through ArchitectureAU. Bradley has recently been recognised for his contributions to the profession as the 2024 Victorian Emerging Architect Prize recipient and 2023 Dulux Study Prize, and is on the curatorial team for the 2025 Architecture Venice Biennale- titled HOME.
Marni Reti
She has long been an advocate for the respectful incorporation of Indigenous knowledge into architectural education and practice, with an academic and professional career dedicated to participatory design with community and Country to amplify culture.
Her dedication to Designing with Country and communities has led her to be considered an expert in this field with lived experience as both a community member and an architect.
Matt Muir
Matt Muir is a Wiradjuri man of Northern New South Wales. Having a background in Architecture Matt has a keen interest in exploring the ways in which the built environment can engage, reflect and enhance Country. Within his current role at Monash University, Matt is researching ways in which university campuses can understand Country and reflect Indigenous culture within the built environment.
Jack Gillmer
Jack is a proud Worimi and Biripi guri of the Gathang language group; and architect who explores Country as the driver of narrative to his architectural approach. Through advocating and facilitating First Nations leadership and co-design his approach explores tangible and intangible cultural paradigm, negotiating multi-sensory outcomes, revealing latent knowledges embedded in Country. Jack is particularly interested in forging connection between cultural knowledge systems and the built environment as a space of unrealised opportunity and endless potential.
With a cultural obligation to care for Country, Jack enables opportunities for Country to lead the design process alongside Traditional Custodians. Recognising this is critical to successful projects, and future of the urban fabric. Jack partakes in diverse professional and community initiatives, including University coursework, publications, public programs, and is undergoing a Certificate III in Gathang Language aspiring to contribute to the revitilisation and sharing of knowledge of his ancestral language.
Light refreshments will be served during the event.
A return bus service is available for this event, departing from Federation Square in the CBD and travelling to TarraWarra Museum of Art.
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