‘Our spiritual and cultural practices have been shaped and adapted over 60,000+ years. This living knowledge informs our decision making today and our innovations of tomorrow.’
Indigenous knowledge has adapted to social and environmental change – while remaining interwoven with the spiritual and cultural practices that, for more than 60,000 years, ensured the wellbeing of both people and country.
Hear unique insights from leading Melbourne intellectuals on Aboriginal approaches to circular knowledge across a diverse variety of sectors.
Jefa Greenaway explores how expressions of identity can be facilitated through architecture and design. Lilly Brown is interested in knowledge production and dissemination, while Kimberley Moulton says curating helps her peel back the concrete foundations we walk on – revealing histories and inspiring new cultural visions.
Hosted by Benson Saulo – an impassioned youth advocate whose work encourages empowered choice and a trust in inherited knowledge.
Presented in partnership with Kalinya Communications and the City of Melbourne as part of Melbourne Knowledge Week.
Featuring
Benson Saulo
Benson Saulo is a descendent of the Wemba Wemba and Gundjitmara Aboriginal nations of western Victoria and the New Ireland Provence of Papua New Guinea.
Saulo has served as the Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations (2011), and in 2012 became the Founding Director of the National Indigenous Youth Leadership Academy (NIYLA). In 2014, Saulo co-founded Mind Garden Projects, a not-for-profit that supports two schools in New Ireland Provence, Papua New Guinea.
More recently, Saulo was involved as a Senior Consultant with Price Waterhouse Coopers’ Indigenous Consulting (PIC). Saulo has received numerous awards, including the National NAIDOC Youth of the Year Award and the Ricci Marks Award, and has been featured in Cleo magazine's '30 under 30' list.
Lilly Brown
Lilly Brown belongs to the Gumbaynggirr people of the mid-north east coast of eastern Australia, and has strong familial and cultural connections to England and Scotland. Lilly has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology from the University of Western Australia, as well as First Class Honours in Indigenous Studies from the University of Melbourne. In 2012, Lilly completed an MPhil in Education at the University of Cambridge as a Charlie Perkins Scholar.
Currently working within the Australian Indigenous Studies program at the University of Melbourne, Lilly is a teaching specialist, lecturer and researcher. Her interests lie in knowledge production and dissemination, the link between knowledge and power, and the value of education as a tool to affect positive social change.
Jefa Greenaway
Jefa Greenaway is a descendant of the Wailwan and Kamilaroi peoples of northwest NSW. He is an architect, interior designer, academic, director of Greenaway Architects and Chair of Indigenous Architecture + Design Victoria (IADV), a not-for-profit providing support and advice regarding all aspects of architecture related to Aboriginal people in Victoria, including encouraging mainstream architects to be more engaged with Indigenous culture.
Jefa’s work has been both awarded and published in newspapers and magazines including the Age, Herald Sun, Bauwelt, Houses, Architecture Review and Belle.
A graduate of Melbourne and Latrobe Universities, Jefa was the recipient of the AIA National Emerging architect prize (the Dulux Study Tour 2011), was appointed Senior Fellow at the Melbourne School of Design (2014), collaborated on the Koorie Heritage Trust’s new headquarters at Federation Square (2015) and sits on the City of Melbourne’s Public Arts Advisory Panel.
He has been awarded the Inaugural Stormtech Scholarship, the Glenn Murcutt International Master Class and a participant in the British Council’s Accelerate Leadership Intensive.
Key to Jefa’s work is the realisation that architecture can act as a conduit between Indigenous communities and architecture as a profession and a tool given architecture’s critical connection to place, continuance of cultural practices and the potential for architecture to speak to cultural expressions of identity.