Women Healing Women, Healing Country: The Space In Between

T R Y

THE SPACE IN BETWEEN

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY School of Architecture, Design and Planning Isabella Harris

W O M E N H E A L I N G W O M E N H E A L I N G C O U N

This Studio Thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s of Architecture, University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design & Planning.

This certifies that the contents of this studio thesis, to the best of my knowledge, is my own work and has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I also certify that the intellectual property for the content of this studio thesis along with curated artefacts (images, photographs, drawings and the like) are the work of the author unless otherwise stated.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following thesis may contain images and references to deceased persons.

This thesis also references information on intergenerational trauma and family/domestic violence, alongside profiles of victim-survivors.

P E R S O N A L A C K

T

I would like to express my gratitude to the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council for their openness to engaging in and with this design project. In particular, I wish to acknowledge Aleisha Lonsdale for her ongoing sharing of knowledge, vision and time throughout the codesign process. Mostly, I am thankful for the relationships forged within this codesign process and the experiences these have created to build my understanding of Aboriginal culture and wisdom. This knowledge will remain with me as I transverse Country, both as participant and designer.

I am also grateful to the Mudgee and surrounding community (service providers and individuals) for the participation and perspectives offered when gathering insight to the project ambitions, within the realities of a regional context. To the women who shared their stories and experiences of trauma- your courage and voice has been instrumental in bringing this project design to where it sits today.

I want to express my gratitude for the direction, advice and encouragement given by Dr Chris Smith and Dr Michael Mossman, of the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design & Planning, during this Master’s Studio Thesis. I also acknowledge the guidance of the Architecture and Design Faculty through past stages of research, which have informed this project.

My award of the Sibyl Leadership Grant from The Women’s College, University of Sydney, enabled to be present within community and engage authentically in the codesign process with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council.

I would also like to thank my partner Nathan and mum Kate, for their continuous support, patience and belief in me, over the past five years.

N O W L E D G M E N

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T O F C O U N T R Y

For generations, the traditional custodians of my project site, Mudgee (Moothi) have lived an abundant and sustainable lifestyle. I acknowledge the Wiradjuri Nation and the Mowgee peoples, among all Aboriginal peoples, and pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging for their ongoing care of these lands and waterways.

As traditional owners of the Munna Reserve, the Mowgee peoples for thousands of years, have thrived within the many reaches of this ecosystem. I recognise this land was, is and always will be Aboriginal Land.

On these lands, I recognise the changing and evolving nature of Country and the ways in which local First Nations communities and their ecologies have responded and adapted to these changes throughout time.

Country is a living, breathing entity with an enduring Spirit, which informs the environment we design with now and into the future.

D E S I G N B R I E F

Regional NSW offers a site to explore diversity in unity and multiple co-existing relationships with community and country, while co-envisioning healing spaces. Travelling from the assumed known, we engage in reflexive processes, working with opportunities to address the tension and complex histories, internal /external, macro /micro, visible and felt. Your designs become contributors to the collective consciousness through a holistic awareness of systemic design principles located in this contemporary social movement of transformation. The project calls for the conceptualisation of catalytic cultural hubs including and not limited to; education, creative, gallery and exhibition spaces for engaged community dialogues surrounding regenerative issues.

This thesis studio aims to provide an architectural offering for healing (theory to practice) to the regional community of Mudgee, acknowledging the crucial nexus of national cultural issues, intergenerational violence/trauma of First Nations peoples and the public health crises of domestic violence, specifically against women and children in rural New South Wales. Co-envisioned and codesigned with the local Wiradjuri Community, artists, victim-survivors and practitioners, The Space In Between, poses a perspective to real, complex, uncomfortable issues and histories, macro and micro, and presents an opportunity to heal through relationships, built on common and shared experiences. These experiences are diverse, authentic, purposeful experiences of coexistence and nourishment; women healing women, healing Country. The Space In Between is a vision for voice, treaty and truth for women and children outside of an urban context, on Wiradjuri Country in Mudgee NSW. It draws on the knowledge of all women across Country, to advocate for and incite, through intimate reciprocal relationships with all matter, healing and regeneration.

The thesis draws on my previous research, Then, Now, Next, Rediscovering Future Design: Rediscovering opportunities for ultimate design. Realigning human centred design through the construct of the womb, 1 which looks toward ecological flourishing through experience, as opposed to objects in an architectural space; the opportunity to build a responsive and responsible culture of architecture. One which sustains all in our ecology. It presents a call to foster pertinacious action of care and to imagine every opportunity to seek spaces in between for new learning.

The previous research centred on experience and relationships within the womb facilitates the research of this body of work. Learnings and unlearnings, through a slow procession toward architectural clarity, are established through the wisdom and voice of landscape, Aboriginal people and community to inform the design. The programs of a Women’s Housing Community (temporary housing), Wellness and Knowledge Hubs and a Community Exchange situate the cruciality of engendering intimate and responsive placemaking, through reciprocal relationships and experiences of knowledge and nourishment, to flourish. This design process intends to provide insight to a experiential framework for architectural design and architectural response, as a catalyst of hope, for healing across the broader micro and macro communities of our nation.

C O N T E N T S

Key Terms 13 Preface 14

Introduction 17

How did we get here?

Project Framework: The Womb, The Nest, A Basket 20 The Womb 23

Concepts and Theory: Experience Over Object

The Nest: Fragments of Learning 27

Fragment 1: What We Know 28 Research Methodologies 29 The Research 30

Intergenerational Trauma & Family and Domestic Violence

Fragment 2: Context of Time 36

Fragment 3: Site Analysis: Munna Reserve 47 Location

Fragment 4: Flora + Flora Assemblages 50 Environmental Report Geology

Biodiversity Services

Fragment 5: Materiality 60 Mycelium Bricks Rammed Earth Glass Innovations

What Became Known 70

Fragment 6: Qualitative Data 71 Survey Interviews

Housing Plus Mudgee Community Health Health Professional Community Co-Design with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council Establishing the principles

Fragment 7: Ethnographic Research 78

Journey Maps of Victim Survivors

A Slow Procession Of Possibility 91

Fragment 8: Emu In The Sky 92

Fragment 9: Moments With Country: Prospect + Refuge 96 Mapping

Atmosphere of Place 104

Fragment 10: Stillness + Sitting 105

Learning, Unlearning & Affirmations 108 Stakeholders Conceptual Statement Principles

Aboriginal Led Trauma Informed

A Basket: An Architectural Response 118 Initial Schema Concept Models

An Iterative Process: Capturing Moments The Project At This Point Schema Women’s Community + Housing The Space In Between Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub, Administration Hub and Community Exchange Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub Administration Hub Community Exchange

New Design Considerations

Weaving + Yarning 188 From Now to Next 194

This thesis is a holistic representation of the process undertaken from concept to architectural response. To honour the extensive research and both the procession on and with Country and the relationships developed with stakeholders, all documentation has been curated within. It is encouraged that you, as the reader, review the document in its entirety. Alternatively, you may choose to read the Learnings, Unlearnings and Affirmations review, at the conclusion of the Nest Phase. This will provide insight to the knowledge gained through the research, informing the architectural response.

Additionally, curated field notes, survey data, interview transcripts and digital representations are made accessible via a website. Please scan the QR code at end of the thesis.

K E Y T E R M S

Domestic Violence:

This thesis will use the term ‘domestic violence’ when referring to any and all forms of violence/abuse in intimate partner relationships and family relationships/households. There are many terms in the Australian landscape, many of which definitions overlap, when working in this sphere. Domestic violence is the most commonly used in the media, at this present time, and has had greatest social awareness. Using a term that is known by most, is integral to raising awareness of the public health crisis Australia as a nation faces.

Intergenerational Trauma:

This thesis uses the term to discuss the intergenerational and transgenerational impacts of traumatic experiences; specifically of the impact of colonisation on First Nations peoples. This term also extends to the affects of domestic violence for Indigenous and non Indigenous women and children.

Womb: Phase one of the thesis; a conceptual architectural framework developed from previous research. The Womb is presented as the archetype for future design.

Nest: Phase two of the thesis; a fragmented research phase

Basket: Phase three of the thesis; the design project development from the Womb and Nesting phases- an assemblage of fragments.

The Space In Between: is a common or collective shared space of experience and engagement between and with all matter.

Country: The term used by Aboriginal peoples to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected. The term contains complex ideas about law, place, custom, language, spiritual belief, cultural practice, material sustenance, family and identity.

Healing: The process by which acceptance, acknowledgment, truth and regeneration take place for all to flourish.

“On almost every front, our world is under enormous stress. We are not at ease with each other, or our planet.”2 UN Secretary-General António Guterres

In 2020, during COVID-19, I returned from university, to my home in regional NSW to undertake my studies and find comfort and solace, in what I knew and what was known, amongst the societal chaos and growing uncertainty for the future. I was able to experience nourishment, an intimate spatial experience of place, drawn from my memories and fragmented moments of conscious and unconscious being, carried from the relationships I had formed over time. Relationships with all matter; My family, the sentience of their nearness in all forms of manifestation; a consolation.

My garden, constancy in the abundant supply of odd shaped vegetables and ripened fruits; the intertwined branches of the plum tree just beyond the house- a playground to the wrens, providing hours of screen time, whilst I stretched my still legs beyond the boredom boundary of my bedroom window. Sweet orange syrup cake, handmade gnocchi and the family tradition of secret sauce making. Cockatoos screeching in the late afternoon, worn, chipped tiles on the fire hearth; scars of familiarity And images of my grandfather preparing for a wintery night. Then, the sunlight that perches at the edge of my bedding, edging toward my pillow on the crisp, frosty mornings of July.

Amongst these moments during COVID-19, I peered in to view the reckoning across our globe, our nation; an interlude to a moment in time that united all humanity temporarily within a space, for just a breath. Here, vulnerability to nature within our shared ecological sphere was apparent. Within that sphere, it was, as it has been, the marginalised, who were most impacted and continue to be

impacted by the economic and health implications of that crisis, in the short and long-term. Whilst COVID-19 may have provided an awakening for some, our global community has been a silent audience to divisions and inequalities throughout time and continues to do so.

It was at this time that I began to reflect deeply on the role “architecture has played in this production,”3 and to question how we arrived in this socio-cultural and socio-political space. My own personal experiences of family and domestic violence and growing up in regional NSW, consciously and unconsciously, had anchored my interest in architecture, for its propensity to create a spatial justice ambition focused on inclusion, accessibility and experience.

And so, in the wake of COVID-19, in 2020, I began my journey to seek knowledge and understanding about our beginnings in order to understand our future, through an architectural lens. In this process, I undertook research, which contributed to the beginnings of my Honours Thesis: Then, now, next, rediscovering future design: Rediscovering opportunities for ultimate design & Realigning human centred design through the construct of the womb 4 Triangulating of Philosophy, Science and Architectural Theory, which as a speculative theory, became a catalyst for further personal research focused on the ancient knowledge of Aboriginal peoples and culture to inform sustainable design practices. This research postulated that the creation of inclusive design manifests through collective relational experiences, between all matter, in the common space between our differences, The Space In Between. This previous research has informed this Master’s Thesis and is a continuation of knowledge sharing and relationship in a codesign space, to create a new architectural narrative.

N T R O D U C T I O N

How did we get here ?

We live in a society, built on a patriarchal hierarchy where socio-economic stance is and has been the most valued commodity of the western world. It is a space where it seems less important for people to know who they are, or to value connectedness with and within spaces, than to know where they are within the status-quo, creating inauthentic spaces and place-making. Capitalism and consumer-centric lifestyles have historically resulted in socio-cultural, sociopolitical and environmental injustices-such as poverty, homelessness, racism, domestic violence, intergenerational trauma and climate change. Our global and local experiences of connectedness have “been created in part, by globalisation, but it is globalisation, which is driven by a patriarchal society and capitalism.”5 This ideology is focused on objects; personal wealth over experiences of wellness and health. These norms (socio-cultural/political/economic and environmental) have created binary divisions between our ecologies, human and environmental (living and nonliving), resulting in spaces of exclusion, locally and globally. “When binary oppositions become the focus, a universal societal view becomes inauthentic and inequitable. Diverse ideals, values and people, identifying outside the binary pairs, or deemed inferior within the binary pair, are not considered or acknowledged in terms of their needs and consequently are marginalised”6 by society and community spaces. This exclusion is the dis-ease of an engineered society.

Whilst Australia is geographically distant from the rest of the world, the impacts of societal and environmental neglect, alongside the COVID-19 pandemic are mirrored in our own national ecology; the desecration of First Nations people and Country, as a direct result of colonisation. The stories of disillusion and experiences of trauma and generational suffering for the marginalised of our communities and of Country. Aboriginal people of Australia, the custodians of Country, the Wiradjuri Nation and the Mowgee people of Mudgee, alongside Country itself, have suffered atrocious acts of violence, desecration and torment at the hands of a patriarchal society. For First Nations People, the long term impacts of this treatment, (these truths) are present today in, high rates of incarceration, child removals, youth detention, poverty, drug and alcohol addiction and domestic violence. For our environment, for Country, the devastation is evidenced in the ecological responses of climate change and extreme weather markers.

On reflection, we are reminded that sovereignty has never been ceded. The Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017)7, is a transformative, urgent call to all Australian people, for the recognition, voice, treaty and truth of Aboriginal Peoples. It distinguishes three extremely important proposals, which

have been previously noted in historical artefacts8 and which are not too much to ask:

1. A First Nations Voice enshrined in the constitution

2. A Makarrata9 Commission and

3. A process of truth telling.

It is intended that these proposals will see future reforms of treaty and truth and constitutional rights of First Nations People. Whilst the current federal government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has recognised the call publicly (May 2022), only time will tell of such resolve. Australian political history has shown on many occasions such calls are met with ‘red tape’, dismissal, ignorance and disregard.10

The Uluru Statement, full of collective spirit, prompts us as people, as Australians, as designers, to engage deeply and listen carefully to First Nations peoples as the true custodians of the land on which we taken. This priority is furthermore highlighted as our world ecology continues to face the conflux of ongoing crises that threaten the very being of all. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 202211 by the United Nations state that, the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is in grave jeopardy due to multiple, cascading and intersecting crises.”12 COVID-19, climate change and conflict dominate the space of now and their impacts, that of our future. “To put the world on track to sustainability will require concerted action on a global scale.”13

Therefore, “the dismantling of the western canon and patriarchal values is essential for the future of our society and environment; our existence.”14 A critical shift in ethics (socio-cultural/political/ economic/environmental) must be grounded in experience over object, as presented in Harry Francis Mallgrave’s, From Object to Experience: The New Culture of Architectural Design 15 This thinking will be explored through architectural response, as the convergence of fragmented knowledge in the research phase between and with the Aboriginal community and various stakeholder groups identified. Looking forward, protecting the vulnerable and marginalised of our communities, macro and micro is an essential priority. Women and children continue to be at the forefront of socio-cultural inequities and violence.16 “Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of climate change, which amplifies existing gender inequalities and poses unique threats to their livelihoods, health, and safety.”17

Anticipating change is borne from knowledge attainment and is pivotal in all aspects of architectural design, across the arts, science and humanities fields. How will we use past knowledge to anticipate our survival given the benightedness of our western society? Acknowledging, drawing and acting on the wisdom of our First Nations peoples, the keepers of Country, is critical to move us to an informed and considered mindset of stewardship for our sustainable future. Codesign is centric to this project and an initial step toward healing Country and the community of Mudgee. Codesign is a process undertaken throughout and beyond the project to build authentic opportunities for change through shared vision, knowledge and responsibility. The process of codesign with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council is represented in adjacent diagram…

This thesis studio, grounds itself in regional NSW and aims to situate the truth about the injustices and trauma faced by women, throughout time, to dismantle the narrative of His-Story, through The Space In Between; a space of inclusive, relational experiences, which nourish and heal. It is essential that architectural activism is centred through reciprocal relationships with Country. Here, Aboriginal voice, courage, culture and knowledge sharing are asserted and authored, through respect and agency of codesign, and will engender healing through intimate and responsive place-making.

Codesign is a generative process built on shared knowledge and lived experiences. Respectful engagement of critical stakeholders, as equals, is situated as the central nexus for this project, as authentic codesign.

The relational elements of Womb, Nest and Basket, are symbolic representations, which form the framework of project procession, through fragmented phases of theory, conceptual thinking, research, experience and design. Each is integral to the curation of what is known and what we know, to envision new catalysts of opportunity in relational design, for all to heal and flourish.

The Womb, centres the theory phase and presents the concept of the womb, as an archetype. An inclusive space of relational experiences, identified as The Space In Between. These experiences build on previous fragments and moments that form our identity, either inherited through DNA, epigenetics, or lived through sensory engagement, memory and atmosphere; all anchored in a relationship of coexistence and function. This phase establishes what is known about the womb and its phenomenology, as a collective archetype, creating contextual experiences and is based on previous research presented in my Honours Thesis.18

The Nest phase predominantly represents the merging of research methodologies and subsequent data; historical, cultural, social, scientific and ethnographic in nature. Indigenous histories, cultures and oral storytelling are centric to this project and enabled through knowledge sharing and the codesign process with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council. Like the assembly of a nest, the research combines fragmented elements of lived and inherited experiences. What is known at a macro level of the socio political, environmental and cultural sphere, alongside what we come to know at a micro level, through engagement and deep listening to all stakeholders, human and non human.

The Basket represents the design phase; the architectural response and programs informed through the previous phases of the Womb and the Nest; the fragments of theory, philosophy and research and the relationships forged in this ontological space. It weaves the fragments of being and knowing, of deep listening, voice and imagination, for what it can become to one and many: intimate, responsive and healing place-making.

P R O J E C T F R A M E W O R K: T H E W O M B , T H E N E S T A N D A B A S K E T

T H E W O M B T H E N E S T A B A S K E T

T H E W O M B

“To look back to our past and the spaces of our collective beginnings as humans, is to look to the womb.”19

If we look back to our very beginnings, our genesis, we look to the space of the womb. An archetype to flourish, which all humans are with and within.

My previous research, Then, Now, Next: Rediscovering Future Design,20 explored the world and spaces in which we inhabit, design and coexist; spaces that are patriarchal, capitalist and consumer-centric, creating divisions and binaries amongst the local and global.

A space of inclusivity, the womb does not discriminate against sex, gender, race, religion, socioeconomic or socio-political status. Rather, it provides a triadic space of function, coexistence and nourishment and at the core of their intersection relational experiences as depicted in the below image. As an archetype, the womb provides for the collective needs of all humanity and through reciprocity to individual needs of the fetus, as responsive engagement. In the initial collective nexus, the womb is a common spatial form that exists in between our conception and birth, despite and between our differences.

The significance, in light of the context of experiences of trauma (intergenerational and domestic violence) is that, “the womb must be acknowledged in order to reclaim its prominence in a metaphysical time, as the sphere of modernity, amongst the dis-ease of societal psychosis.”21 Placemaking, like the centric anchor of the womb, creates spaces to which we gravitate. Places which provide security and where our well being is optimised. Sources of truth. Places where we are accepted and what we know about ourselves forms part with and within our unconscious and conscious selves- a containment of knowing and unknowing. We are all formed and develop within a womb. We are born from a womb. The womb harnesses and preserves life.

As a conceptual persuasion for inclusive design, the womb focuses on experiences (over object) which nourish through reciprocal relationships and the purpose of space. Supported by the research of Kristen Myers and David Elad, in Biomechanics of the Human Uterus, 22 “the womb adapts to the demands of the developing human and is endogenous in nature. It provides an adaptable interior environment, responsive to the needs of the fetus, as well as providing protection through its biological and physiological forms.”23 It is an ecology that creates identity through sensory experiences, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA24), genomic imprinting25 and the socio-cultural lineage of parents- inherited experiences of memory, such as trauma and known as epigenetics.26

These fragments, relational experiences lived, inherited consciously and unconsciously, create our identities, yet in order to understand identity and flourish as an ecology, all must be anchored in relational experiences of knowledge and nourishment, known herein as, The Space In Between.

“To truly know ourselves, we must first know and celebrate each other, our humanity, our earth. To be with and within, we must focus on experiences of inclusion. Nourishment and coexistence, over the object, which defines and excludes. For, as we teeter together, on the edge of potentiality, as designers, from theory to practice, everything is possible, in The Space Between.”27

The Space In Between is one foregrounded in reciprocal relationships. It is the common or collective shared space of experience and engagement, between and with all matter. In architectural terms it establishes experiences of knowledge and nourishment, as opposed to the object, created through architectural responses to stakeholders (human and non human), as centric to responsible and sustainable design. Living systems make sense of the world through relationship and emotion and thus, as depicted by Mallgrave, “emotion becomes integral to perception and action,”28 a cognitive process which induces memory making and cognitive responses to place-making. In Indigenous cultures kinship and relationship to all, centres cultural traditions of story through songlines in the space in between now and then. In First Knowledges: Songlines, The Power and Promise, 29 Margo Neale states the significance of relational knowledge to Aboriginal identity. “Songlines are foundational to our being- to what we know, how we know it and when we know it.”30

The Space In Between reimagines opportunities for building a shared efficacy toward healing. It bridges the dis-ease, dis-stance and dis-connectedness between dualisms or binary oppositions, created through the western cannon of patriarchy, capitalism and marginalisation. It postulates the space between objects and moments in time and place, where experiences are created.

In this thesis design project, Women Healing Women, Healing Country draws on the convergence points of relationships in The Space In Between throughout the process. That is, the space of codesign with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC), between concept and program and the shared experiences of trauma experienced by women (Indigenous and non Indigenous). A space where understanding the commonalities of trauma and violence (scalable, e.g. domestic to national) allows for the development of connections in which individuals, families and communities are enveloped and can heal through relationships, Country and culture.

As living entities, we are relational beings. Creators of our stories, shared and personal. We are keepers of the moment, of moments and experiences which define us, which are with and within us. These experiences create knowledge which enable us to flourish. “We need to move from our insular defining spaces, to venture into our common space. To align the naturally mirrored and common ecologies of the womb and earth. To unite for the survival of life.”31

T H E N E S T: F R A G M E N T S O F L E A R N I N G

What We Know- Historical & Scientific Research

Like the assembly of a nest, the research combines fragmented elements of lived and inherited experiences to be shared. The nest, much like the womb, provides nourishment and agency through intimate relationships of refuge and prospect and knowledge building. Nests remain and provide an ontological space for other birds and species, local use & reuse of materials creating stewardship. Reciprocity of relationship within the ecology is paramount.

Research and experiences, much like the composition of the nest inform: identity- inherited (DNA and epigenetics) and lived (memories), conscious and unconscious, place-making and decision making. These shape our being and engender relationships to connect, empower and heal.

R E S E A R C H M E T H O D O L O G I E S

A hybrid approach to knowledge creation and explorative design, intertwines quantitative qualitative research methodologies to bridge the gap of complexity between what is known and unknown, to what became known. This thinking explored by David Wang and Linda Gorat in the text, Architectural Research Methods, and known as “Experimental and Quasi Experimental Research.”32 This form presents the anticipation of what lies ahead and what is happening in the precise moment. This project draws on such an approach, whereby a range of research methodologies, inclusive of a thorough literature review, were undertaken to develop insight into the experiences and impacts of trauma (intergenerational and family and domestic violence), alongside building authentic knowledge of the site and about Indigenous histories and cultures, environmental understandings and relational engagement with stakeholders-human and non human. The research undertaken included historical, scientific and environmental research, historical and contemporary oral storytelling, qualitative and quantitative data sets and ethnographic studies, through interviews and procession on site, over thirteen weeks. The research sits in parallel with future focused reports such as the international United Nations Sustainable Development Goals33 and the National GANSW Designing With Country Paper 34

Ethnographic Participant Reference

Participant 1

Housing Plus Mudgee Staff Member

Participant 2

Mudgee Community Health (MHC) Care worker

Participant 3

Psychologist and Health Care Professional

Participant 4

Participant 5

Participant 6

Participant 7

Participant 8

Victim Survivour “Jessica”

Victim Survivour “Emily”

Victim Survivour “Lucy”

Victim Survivour “Tia”

Victim Survivour “Gemma”

T H E R E S E A R C H

Intergenerational Trauma & Family and Domestic Violence

“The control and abuse never ends. …The other day I posted a photo at a cafe having lunch and tagged the location so people knew the last place I was in case something happened to me. I try to validate my child constantly, teaching him to break the cycle and that it isn’t his responsibility to keep both of his parents happy. ……The physical distance between him (ex-partner) and I has done wonders for my mental health, but I still feel unsafe. It’s ‘when’ something happens, not ‘if’. I am in constant fear that he will do something to me.” Participant 5, Victim Survivor35

A local community survey, Gathering Insight: Family and Domestic Violence in Regional NSW,36 of Mid-Western Regional Council residents, was conducted between August-October 2022, to gather insight into availability and utilisation of family and domestic violence services, experiences of the services and to gather data related to needs of victim survivors in short and long term circumstances. In addition, Interviews37 with service providers, members of the Mid-Western Regional Community, and representatives of the local Aboriginal community, were also undertaken to establish a broader context of understanding. Data which supports the research below is represented statistically and as annotations within the text boxes below. Complete survey data and interview transcripts are accessible through the Project Digital Archive.38

Domestic Violence in an Australian context is nothing short of a public health and welfare crisis. Women and children are disproportionately victims/victim-survivors to domestic violence, with First Nations women, women with disabilities, pregnant women and rural/regional women, more likely to be victims to domestic violence, as highlighted by Anne Summers in her report, “The Choice: Violence or Poverty.”39 Statistics from a report by the Domestic Violence NSW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Steering Committee40 also indicate that domestic violence occurs at higher rates in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities than in the general population, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are thirty four times more likely to be admitted to hospital for family violence related injuries and five times more likely to be victims of homicide, as a result of domestic violence than non-Indigenous women. The report by Summers,41 also indicated that domestic violence is the leading cause for homelessness amongst women and children.42 Although the conversation around domestic violence in Australia is gaining traction, these conversations are not at the forefront of constitutional reform, policy making and provision of services.

Interviewer: How does Mudgee Community Health (MCH) engage authentically with the Indigenous community in regards to providing services for domestic violence?

Participant 2: We don’t see as many Indigenous clients as non-Indigenous clients. Unfortunately, MCH doesn’t have a dedicated Aboriginal health worker position. The Integrated Care Worker covers Indigenous communities around the area. Also none of the community services in Mudgee have particular Aboriginal programs, which is concerning.43

Women and children from all backgrounds, experiencing intergenerational trauma and domestic violence in regional Australia, face multiple and specific contextual challenges, incomprehensible to those in urban settings. Isolated and within small communities, access to sufficient support and services is inadequate and inconsistent, leaving many women destitute, homeless, financially unstable and unable to provide for their children. More often than not, these women return to a domestically violent household in order to survive44; the paradox of safety and survival. Many surveys, interviews and reports45 identify that the women and children of rural/regional Australia, dealing with domestic violence, are continuously subject to inadequate support and access to services; when there are services available, they are either limited, have long wait times, or are not specific to their needs. Often there is a lack of information or misinformation in the community about the types of support available, with many women unaware of what may be available to them. This is often exacerbated by the stigma associated with domestic violence and the reluctance of victims to ask for help, in fear of future implications to their safety, wellbeing and social engagement.

Participant 3: Domestic violence services often can’t help people with exactly what they need. And they will often say that. Unfortunately, I have sent clients to these services and they have had little to no assistance.46

Survey: 42.3% of those surveyed stating they did not seek domestic violence services because:

“shame-not wanting people to know”

“I am unable to get there and don’t have access to a phone of my own and when I called the police once , I was taking my life into my own hands.”

“I attempted to find help but wasn’t sure where to go”47

Survey: Of those who did access domestic violence services 62% disagreed or strongly disagreed that their needs were met.48

Furthermore, a recent report from ANROWS titled, A deep wound under my heart: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s well being and safety from violence, 49 identified that “In Australia, one quarter of women subject to gendered violence report at least three different forms of interpersonal victimisation in their lifetime…Being exposed to multiple, repeated forms of interpersonal victimisation may result in complex trauma, which involves a range of traumatic health problems and psychosocial challenges.”50 Intergenerational trauma and the interconnectedness of lived experiences are formed in the realities of genocide, outlined by Tanya Tarlaga in the text, All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism.51 “We have come from a history of genocide, and genocide is about the deliberate annihilation of a race…It is trauma on a more massive scale-psychologically, physically, spiritually, culturally.”52

Generally, women experiencing intergenerational and complex trauma, are often expected to manage a siloed approach to accessing services, which is often difficult to navigate, financially inaccessible and lacking in personal care. Amongst the key recommendations of the ANROWS report was a need for coordinated and consistent services, as essential in providing support for women in these circumstances and the embedding of “trauma-informed care within a holistic wellbeing framework that integrates mental, physical and psychosocial wellbeing.”53 The implications of intergenerational trauma for children is, according to Taralga, “...characterised by normative instability…They are born into social exclusion and are not only at risk of suicide, they also face higher rates of sexual abuse and self destructive behaviours.”54

Survey: 80.8 % of survey participants indicated that they expected centralised services to be included in a Women’s Refuge and educational centre, with 69.2 % of participants indicating that consistency was fundamental to their current and future needs.55

“There is a missing link between I need to leave now and I have somewhere safe to go.”56

In 2016, the Personal Safety Survey (PSS), referenced in Summers’ report, stated an estimate of “275,000 Australian women suffered physical and/or sexual violence from their current partner. Of these women, 81,700 (30 percent) had temporarily left the violent partner on at least one occasion but later returned. Mostly they returned because they still loved their current partner, wanted to work things out, or the partner had promised to stop the threats and the violence (69,000 or 85 percent). But for around 15 percent of these women (12,000*), the reason for returning was that they had no money or nowhere else to go. Returning to their violent partner seemed a better option to being homeless or trying to subsist in poverty.”57 The choice for women fleeing

domestically violent environments is unfortunately limited; to flee and more than likely become homeless, or to stay and continue to face the violence. This ultimatum is exacerbated by location and contextual resources; fundamentally, women in regional areas have nowhere to go.

Interview with Housing Plus Staff58

Interviewer: What housing options are available in Mudgee currently for women and children facing domestic violence?

Participant 1: None. There is nothing at the moment. The closest housing option is in the Blue Mountains or Orange. Dubbo and Forbes are average.

Interviewer: So a minimum of 2 hours away to access any housing options.

Participant 1: There is one short term housing stay in Bathurst, well Kelso, but it is always occupied.

Interviewer: And that’s still 1 and half hours away.

Interviewer: What sort of support is available at the moment through housing plus and other services?

Participant 1: We are working out more affordable housing options, introducing support for workers for budgeting and up-skilling. In 2016 the Women’s Domestic Violence court fund started. Prior to this, women were having to report abuse and return to an abusive household.

Interviewer: Yes, this was exactly the experience my mum and I had back in 2014.

Participant 1: Yeah there were no support services back then, I mean there still isn’t a great deal now due to state funding and business capacity. Housing Plus is more a referral service rather then a case management service. There are so many gaps along the journey.59

Hannah Robinson’s article, “No one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in regional, rural and remote NSW,”60 highlights the severity of domestic violence in regional areas.

“Across Australia, people living in regional, rural and remote communities are 24 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family and domestic violence than people living in major cities.”61

Mudgee, on Wiradjuri Country, ‘a nest in the hills’, the picturesque weekend getaway, world class wineries, a hidden secret; part of the Orana Region, one of two communities with the highest rates of family and domestic violence for any geographic region in New South Wales.62 These regions also have the highest numbers of domestic violence incidents occasioning grievous bodily harm.63 According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics,64 in the period between July 2017 - June 2018,

there were 599.3 domestic apprehended violence orders (AVO) rate per 100,000 population in the Mid-Western Regional Area (Mudgee local council area) compared to 307.8 domestic apprehended violence orders (AVO) rate per 100,000 population in Sydney.65 Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and with greater awareness and voice around domestic violence, AVO statistics have increased across the board. Between June 2021 - July 2022, there were 686.3 domestic AVOs rate per 100,000 population in the Mid-Western Regional Area and 358.1 domestic AVOs rate per 100,000 population in Sydney.66

“As a psychologist and with my professional career history, I think there is a societal responsibility to rehabilitate men, who more often than not are the perpetrators, as well.”67 Participant 3-Health Professional

Participant 2: At the moment, we don’t have an early intervention service, but Dubbo and Bathurst do. I provide domestic violence support, to mostly women and children. We do have counselling services and within Community Health there are mental health services but domestic violence is not their core focus.

Interviewer: What specific domestic violence services are provided?

Participant 2: **** and I run a domestic violence group called Sharkcage. It is an 8 week educational program. This is for people who are safe and want to learn about types of abuse and rights in an effort to educate people about abuse.

Interviewer: So there is a gap between leaving a violent situation and reaching a stage like attending Sharkcage. What sort of housing options do MCH refer people too?

Participant 2: The accommodation thing is a massive issue. It’s ridiculous, there is no refuge, people often have to leave town. Closet refuge used to be in Katoomba or Bathurst. There are a few community members that are interested in the social and affordable housing sphere but haven’t had much traction.68

The comparison between rural and urban areas in this context highlights the need for accessible services in regional areas to be of equal quality and quantity to that of urban cities. The urgency consolidated in the survey data and interview transcript.

Survey: 52% of respondents said they had accessed domestic violence services, however 94% of these respondents stated that the services they accessed were in fact inadequate, unhelpful and they had to push for any support.69

Interviewer: And how long is the waiting time for any accommodation?

Participant 1: How long is a piece of string? Where are you applying for, what type of property are you needing? It is endless.

Interviewer: Yeah wow okay. What is the process to access housing?

Participant 1: You used to be able to just rock up to the refuge, hop on a bus or get on a train. People are often reliant on relationships between other services. Now, you have to present yourself to Barnardos. They then make an assessment of your situation and will refer you on to particular service providers. It’s all about the assessment.70

C O N T E X T O F T I M E

Every moment in time sits in the context of now, with wisdom built on yesterday, in the anticipation of tomorrow.

For the people of the Wiradjuri Nation, time is not measured in linear form, but rather circular, without a beginning or end. Time is situated by events within the context of now, a space of considered focus.

D R E A M T I M E

Dreaming is part of social, religious, political and economic life for Aboriginal people as referenced in First Knowledges: Design by Alison Page and Paul Memmott.71 The knowledge, values, traditions and law are shared through oral histories, storytelling, ceremony, dance and song. This knowledge provides a structure, which sits in the present and by which, Aboriginal people view and interpret the world.

During the Dreaming, ancestral spirits, who appeared in many forms, came up out of the earth and down from the sky to walk on the land, as travelers and hunters and with consideration, they carved the land formations across Country. They also created all the people, animals and vegetation that were to be a part of the land and laid down the patterns their lives were to follow. These spirit ancestors gave Aboriginal people the lores and customs of their culture. When their work was completed the ancestral spirits went back into the earth, the sky, the waters, in diverse forms appended to their people. Dreaming stories form part of Songlines, the knowledge system of Aboriginal people today.72

To the Wiradjuri people, Baiame is the creation ancestor and the Skyfather. He is seen in the Orion constellations of the night sky. He descended from the sky to land and gave form to the land, creating rivers, mountains and forests. He also gave Aboriginal people their laws, traditions and culture. There are many dreaming stories about Baiame, associated with different clans across Nations and all Aboriginal people.

T R A N S N A T I O

N A L

From the earliest of times, people have used the sky to ground their spirituality, cultures , thinking and values. “Constellations: common global meanings”, Cosmos Magazine73, represents this as, “Constellations of stars have assisted people in shaping their own ongoing narratives and cultures to make meaning of life on the land. Even though we live under one sky, we all do not see the same sky, at the same time.”74

The constellations however, are what connect all people, all matter. Common patterns between Greek and Aboriginal cosmology, such as Orion and Baiame, create relationships through story and symbol.

N A T I O N A L

Baiame is the creation ancestor and the Skyfather for many Aboriginal people and their Nations. He is seen in the Orion constellations of the night sky. He descended from the sky to land and gave form to the land, creating rivers, mountains and forests. He also gave Aboriginal people their laws, traditions and culture.75 There are many dreaming stories about Baiame, associated with different clans across Nations and all Aboriginal people.

January 26th, 1788 marks a time in history of devastation, for First Nations people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Captain Arthur Phillip of the British Royal Navy, as commander of the First Fleet, led 11 ships into Botany Bay, New South Wales. Sydney Cove in Port Jackson became the first site for colonisation and violent conflict, disease, displacement and exile for the people of the Eora Nation.

U R B A N

The Wiradjuri people are known as the people of the three rivers: the Wambool (now known as the Macquarie River), the Galari (the Lachlan River, from which the electorate takes its name) and the Murrumbidjeri (the Murrumbidgee River). Wiradjuri country is the largest in NSW,and the second largest within Australia as indicated in the AIATSIS “Map of Indigenous Australia.”76 The “Gugaa” (Goanna) is the overarching totem for the Wiradjuri Nation. It is the symbol that connects all people, past and present, of Wiradjuri land. For the Wiradjuri people the Emu in the Sky has great significance to the way they live and engage with Country.

“Many aboriginal groups across Australia recognise the ‘Emu in the Sky’, a dark figure stretching across the Milky Way…The emu is observed as it changes position from season to season. The changes closely relate to knowledge of both cultural matters and the resources linked to the Emu.”77

As documented by the National Museum of Australia Defining Moments Timeline,78 1794, marked the first acknowledged massacre of Aboriginal people by colonisers, known as the Hawkesbury Massacre, in a quest to obtain rich fertile soils for grazing and occupation. With increasing convict populations and harsh drought induced climate, Governor Lachlan Macquarie was focused on increasing the settlement’s capacity to produce its own food. His focus was on grain based agriculture to create a food supply for people and stock. Spurred on by capitalist ideologies, landholders continued to build stock holdings. Colonisers continued to expand their search for pastoral areas in a march to increase personal wealth and landholdings. In 1813 William Charles Wentworth, William Lawson and Gregory Blaxland, crossed to Blue Mountains to seek land for these purposes. Bathurst,west of the Blue Mountains, was established as a colonised town in 1815. For the Wiradjuri people the impacts were unfathomable, with unrelenting violence, displacement and insurmountable deaths.79

D O M E S T I C

The Mowgee clan are the Aboriginal people who lived on Country, now known as Mudgee and its surrounding areas. The Mowgee women’s totem is the Wedge Tail Eagle (Maliyan) and the men’s totem is the Crow (Waggan). Wiradjuri Country, 80 by Larry Brandy explains that the Wedge Tail Eagle is Australia’s largest bird of prey and is most visible in the night sky of winter. Whilst, the Crow is best seen in the evening sky during the summer months.

In 1822, William Lawson traveled from Bathurst to Mudgee and declared that Mudgee was the ideal pastoral grounds for agriculture. George and Henry Cox, moved cattle from Bathurst to Mudgee and they established themselves on the property known as Menah; an Aboriginal name meaning ‘place.’ After a short period of time, the relationship between the Mowgee people of the Wiradjuri Nation and the settlers became strained and as stated in Stephen Gapps work, Gudyarra: The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance- The Bathurst War,81 “...when there was ‘interference’ with the women, the warriors’ hostility was aroused. Warriors drove the armed stock men away, released cattle from the yards and killed numbers of sheep.”82 The Cox family responded with a counterattack which took place at Menah. In 1824, an assault on a young Aboriginal woman of the Dabee clan resulted in the men of the tribe burning down a hut and killing the stock men responsible, as well as live stock. The Dabee people were taken by surprise in an attack in the Brymair Valley. Recounts from Gapps book tell of the details pertaining to the massacre which, has had impact on the representation of Aboriginal people in the Mudgee region today; “very many sad scenes, when a war of nearly extermination was declared…An immense number of the natives, men, women and children, were slaughtered at Mudgee.. In the long reach of water at Dabee.”83 Details of the devastation and violence were never recorded and to this day are very rarely spoken of in Mudgee. In a conversation with Aleisha Lonsdale, Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council chairperson, she stated that “the people of Mudgee are not ready and may never be ready to learn of these atrocities. What is far more beneficial, is moving forward to create harmonious relationships in the present.”84

The town of Mudgee was gazetted and in 1841 and the township was established and marked by early architecture. The growth of Mudgee and the surrounding areas was the direct result of gold discovery at Hill End. Mudgee became a central hub for trade and travel routes to and from Sydney. The population increased from 200 to over 1500 people in 1861. During this time, the town infrastructure also developed to include churches, a school, post office, police station, court house and town hall.

Increasing colonisation and the introduction of diverse agriculture propelled the economic development of the township during the late 1800’s. Specifically the introduction of wool, merino studs and viticulture. Discovery of coal outside Mudgee, in the small township of Ulan, in 1924 has been an economic driver for nearly 100 years. Coal exploration has expanded across three sites and encroached on the ecology and sacred sites of Country. Ecological destruction through introduced species, farming, mining, viticulture and the use of air borne chemicals has led to decreased populations of native animals, destruction of watering holes and landscapes, impacted the health and well being of the community and represents an overall devaluation of Aboriginal culture. During COVID-19, the region drew many tree changers to the area, in search of a less urbanised environment. Tourism has continued to thrive in the region, with Mudgee being voted the top town for tourism nationally in 2021 and 2022.

According to the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council, The Munna Reserve has always been a place of recreation and knowledge sharing, for both Aboriginal and non Aboriginal people. Sharing knowledge is central to Aboriginal culture. The site has been impacted by infrastructure development, the Mid-western Regional Council waste facility and more recently, housing sub divisions. The site however, continues to be significant to the local community through engagement with younger generations. Oral histories and walking together with Country, is critical in ensuring knowledge is shared, for the greater good of the ecology. Currently, the site is utilised as a gathering place for the Aboriginal community and an educational experience for local school children. Community are invested in ensuring education about bush medicine, landcare and regeneration is realised to protect and sustain Country for the future. The following Dreaming story for this site ironically connects to the proposed site program of refuge and healing for women; a call to address the global and local public health crises of trauma and domestic violence against women and children.

(This transcription has been provided by Aleisha Lonsdale, niece of Uncle David Maynard and Chairperson of Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council 2022). This story was found in the AIATSIS archives and had been recorded in an old diary of a non Indigenous landowner85 as ‘a legend of the Mudgee Aborigines.’86 The story was transcribed by Wiradjuri man, Uncle David Maynard.

“A long time ago, a young woman was stolen by a man of another tribe and carried away to her far off wurley.

She was not content in her new home and seized the first opportunity to escape. As she was trying to make her way across the mountains to her own tribe a peculiar adventure befell her. She wandered on and on through the bush, not certain as to the direction her steps were leading her, but always climbing higher until at last she reached the moon.

She was fortunate in coming to a part of it that was thickly inhabited not by man, of whom she was afraid, but by kangaroo rats, possums, bandicoots and other small creatures of which she was particularly fond. It did not take long to secure these and having put them in her gunny bag she resumed her march. One morning as she was trudging along she came upon the camp of the man in the moon. As soon as he saw her, he wanted her for his own and he rose and gave chase.

She was too fast for a heavy man who spent most of his time sitting down, so he called his dogs and sent them after her. She thought that her end had come and in fright let fall the gunny bag when out jumped all the imprisoned creatures which scattered in all directions and no sooner than the dogs saw them they forgot the woman and chased after them. These creatures became the stars of the milky way.

By good fortune the terrified woman ran downwards in a straight line for her home, which she reached footsore and weary, but full of her wonderful story which she soon told the tribe.

Henceforth speculation concerning the man in the moon ceased and everyone believed that he was a black man and that the dark spots at his back are his dogs.”

FRAGMENT 3

S I T E A N A L Y S I S

Munna Reserve, Mudgee

WIRADJURI NATION

M U D G E E

Mudgee, sits on Wiradjuri Country, in the Cudgegong River Valley, in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales. From conversation with MLALC, the name ‘Mudgee’ derives from the Wiradjuri language. Mudgee (Moothi), translates to resting place or nest in the hills, alluding to rising mountains and their volcanic history capped in basalt lava flows; some 17 million years old.87 Geographic and geological references are also given to the surrounding towns, as part of the strong culture of place-making for Aboriginal people; Lue (a chain of waterholes), Gulgong (a gully) Wollar (a rock waterhole), Menah (flat country) and Cooyal (dry country). The custodians of the land are the Mowgee and Dabee people of the Wiradjuri Nation, whose sacred cultural and tool making sites, such as Hands on Rock, The Drip and Babyfoot Cave remain as significant sites today.

The Cudgegong River, integral to the town, is a perennial stream and forms part of the Macquarie catchment of the Murray-Darling basin. The river rises from the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range within Wollemi National Park to the east, flowing generally in a westerly direction. The Cudgegong River is foundational to a series of fourteen tributaries, before reaching its confluence with the Macquarie River at Lake Burrendong. The natural variability of the river system overall (and during flooding and drought) drives diverse and productive ecosystems. Over time, plants and animals adapted to flourish through different parts of the wetting and drying cycle, however, subsequent damming of the river, in the upper sector at Windamere Dam, has resulted in significant flow changes along the river into the tributaries, impacting these river channels and vegetation. Surrounding the basalt peaks are sandstone ravines and cliff ridges, alongside dry forests and rain forest gorges and broad valleys which spill out into alluvial flats, rich with sediment. This Country has formed the majority of agricultural land in the region.88

F L O R A + F A U N A

“There is no place without a history, there is no place that has not imaginatively been grasped through song, dance and design, no place where the traditional owners can not see the imprint of sacred creation.”89 Deborah Rose

An Environmental Report supplied by MLALC- R. Mjadwesch, Flora and Fauna Assessment.90

The site, Munna Reserve, is located 3 kilometres north west of the township of Mudgee and was reclaimed by the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council, through Native Land Title in 2019.91 The site is significant to the Wiradjuri people today, as a space of spiritual nourishment, bush tucker, gathering and knowledge sharing. Historically it is recognised as a recreational space for both the local Aboriginal People and the colonisers. The site is 29 acres and is densely vegetated with both native and introduced flora. It shares a boundary with the local tip and all boundaries are marked by fencing, which have cutaways to accommodate animal migration across and beyond the site.

A S S E M B L A G E S A C R O S S T H E S I T E

- White Box Grassy Woodland: This area of the site is dominated by White Box (Eucalyptus albens), with a second canopy of Blakely’s Red Gum (Eucalyptus blakelyi) and Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) to the west of the site. Additionally, a large part of the study area is Box-Gum grassy woodland, a community of species which is listed as endangered under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and the Commonwealth Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Sub canopies provide a sparse representation across this area of the site, whilst groundcover is dominated by grasses, native and introduced. Assorted herbs are also found amongst the groundcover, alongside Chocolate lilies and orchids. Other sections of the woodland are dominated by Apple Box (Angophora floribunda). There is evidence of robust regeneration around existing older and mature trees. A subcanopy is Cherry Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis) and Black Cypress (Callitris endlicheri) supports a grassy understory.

- Wetlands: A diverse group of sedges92 and rushes can be located in the wetland area and around the small dam to the western side of the site. These reeds are traditionally used by women in basket weaving crafts and include native and noxious plant species.

- Fauna: Fauna identified on the site include: Common Eastern Froglet, Shingleback lizard, Echidna, Ring-tailed Possum, Brush-tailed Possum, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Red-necked Wallaby, European Rabbit, Deer and Red Fox. An abundance of avian species seek refuge across the site, including but not limited to: Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Little Lorikeet, Eastern Rosella, White-throated Treecreeper, Willie Wagtail, Brown Thornbill, Noisy Friarbird, Golden Whistler, Pied Butcherbird and Currawong.

The following site analysis focuses on the geology, biodiversity, land zoning and services. Whilst this analysis is a traditional way to understand the site, engaging on site with both environmental scientists and Aboriginal community gave greater insight to the site limitations: close proximity to the tip, no existing infrastructure, no access to town water supply, introduced non native species impacting Country and opportunities: gathering and kinship to learn about Country on site, proximity to town, connecting with local schools to teach Aboriginal culture to the broader community, native species located on site, flora to extend weaving and bush tucker education.

The geology mapping and site analysis focuses on the physical build up of Country’s grounding foundations.

Mudgee and surrounding areas, are rich in many natural resources such as coal, gold, lead and silver, which has seen exploitation and great destruction of Country and many sacred First Nations sites.

Natural sediments such as windamere volcanics (volcanic sandstone, autoclastics, shale, rare limestone), biranganbil formations (quartz-lithic, feldspar-lithic, quartz sandstone, siltstone, slate and shale), quaternary (silt, clay, sand, sporadic pebble) sutchers creek formation (sandstone, mudstone, limestone), gunnedah basin (siltstone, sandstone, conglomerate, coal lenses) and cainozoic (quartz, gravel, sand, silt, clay) build up the geology of the Mudgee area and highlight the significant geographical history of the site.

The diverse geographical makeup of the site and greater area highlights the fragmented, historic layers that are embodied as part of Country; an ongoing, fragmented representation of what was and will be the Country we exist with and within.

B I O D I V E R S I T Y

The biodiversity mapping and site analysis focuses on the western division of Country by government, local councils and other boards, defining what is and isn’t considered of high value, catering to developers, planners and investors, aided by the federal governments Biodiversity Offset Scheme93

Much of the classified high biodiversity and visually sensitive land is defined as the hills, escarpments and dense bush to the south west of the town- the least developed land within the area. However, with increased tourism and mining booms, large parts of the land is slowly being acquired and zoned for industrial and residential purposes.

Aleisha Lonsdale (MLALC) in collaboration with corresponding authour Jessica Mclean, Shadow waters: making Australian water cultures visible, 94 unpack the Indigenous concept of shadow waters. Through this text and conversation, Aleisha explained that shadow waters are the waters that we can not see, yet still hold equally great significance and value to First Nations culture and Country as water which is visible on land. These shadow waters nourish and provide for Country as they adapt to environmental changes. Hence, the classification of such shadow waters as ‘moderate sensitivity,’ is anchored in a western view in only valuing water which can be seen and profited from.

W A T E R W A Y S + Z O N I N G

Political charged and seen as an economic driver in western philosophy, water and land within the region has been conquered and divided by colonisers and council bodies for over 200 years. Such divisions and zonings have severed and damaged First Nations deep connections and physical relationships to Country and sacred sites across the region.

All though the Australian government claims to working toward a new way of governing land and water through the “Empowering Communities Design Report,”95 initiative, specifically in regional areas, Traditional Owners and Local Aboriginal Land Councils often have faced many difficulties in owning, controlling and managing their own Country. Colonised communities in Australia are often grounded and imposed upon significant water systems for First Nations communities.

“Indigenous rights in water are not adequately recognised by Australian law and policy. This is largely because Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives of water and its management differ greatly. This creates difficulties as non-Indigenous laws and management plans separate land from water and generally regard water as a resource available for economic gain. As water is predominantly considered only for its consumptive value, its use and regulation is limited and restricted by governments to industries or individuals willing to pay the highest price.”96

S E R V I C E S

Community and health services within Mudgee are limited and under staffed, often resulting in the inability to support local community. The nature of these service models means that they are unsustainable and insufficient for the community in which they are located. Mudgee is part of one of two regions with the highest rates of domestic violence in New South Wales.97 “First Nations Women, women with disabilities, pregnant women and rural/regional women, more likely to be victims to domestic violence .”98

General services in the area such as St Vincent de Paul, Barnardos and Mudgee Community Health are localised to the town CBD and are within walking distance of one another, close other facilities and waterways, making them quite accessible for those without motorised transport.

First Nations targeted services are located on the outskirts of the town’s CBD in the industrial area; isolated and difficult to access.

The Central West has a large Indigenous population, yet access to Indigenous services is inadequate when compared to the quantity of other services in the area and physically inaccessible for most. The locality and lack of services speaks volumes to the little respect and recognition of the history and truth of the region and greater Australia.

FRAGMENT 5

M A T E R I A L I T Y & C O N S T R U C T I O N

Materiality for architectural design, on this site, Munna Reserve, has geographical, political, historical, and cultural considerations. Materiality represents art, science and service in both Aboriginal culture and architectural design and is a response to and with the relationship between the environment, design and users. Through conversations with Aleisha (MLALC) on site, consideration of the resourcing and materiality was key when analysing the short and long term impacts to ecologies, macro and micro. Knowing the extremes in local climate, alongside learning about organisation of landscape and the abundance of natural resources currently available on site (or potentially on site), further research was undertaken to analyse and develop understanding of natural materials. This perspective focused on embodied energy, thermal capacity, sustainable use, connection to Country and participant experience.

For Aboriginal peoples, relationship with materiality is relationship with Country. Aboriginal culture and spirituality embraces all matter as living. Materials found on, with and in Country, are extensions of the body and were gifted from ancestors to be used, adapted, recycled and shared. These “..objects were traded along the Songlines hand to hand, Country to Country...”100 As materiality is one with all matter, it forms identity and must not be removed without permission.

Learning in this codesign space focused on mutual knowledge building between the community and I. Bridging technologies past with those in the present and future were conversational frames. Part of the process I valued throughout these discussions was the passive ‘interrogations’ to build knowledge and to question a western way of thinking around new innovations. That is, to look for evidence and action beyond the page of material that ‘tells’ of successes or benefits.

E X P L O R I N G M A T E R I A L I T Y

Honouring relationship with Country is central. Understanding the macro (urban), meso (building) and micro (materials) scales of this project, is essential in designing, constructing and delivering a building which considers impact for a sustainable future and aims for a circular economy. This process aims to challenge the processes and products which contribute to climate change, waste management, biodiversity loss and pollution.

“Now that we are coming to terms with the finality of earth’s resources, perhaps we should be reassessing what is ‘primitive’ and what is ‘advanced.”99 Alison Page

Regenerative Tectonic Architecture

2014 saw the initial innovative and design thinking behind mushroom bricks as sustainable, regenerative architectural material for buildings and spaces. Architect David Benjamin, NY, from the firm The Living, was inspired by a manufacturing company, Ecovative, founded in developing practical and economic uses for the mushroom spore mycelium.101 Working closely with Arup, the bricks were developed and resulted in a structurally sound material to produce the Hy-Fy; an architectural installation that won MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. (Figure 1)

Figure 1.

Mycelium is the fibrous tissue (hyphae) of fungi and is the medium through which reciprocal relationships are formed with plant matter. Mycelium engages with other plants, underground and in exchange for sugars, shares other essential nutrients, via their root systems.102 By nature mycelium are social organisms, according to Doctor Suzanne Simarad, whose life work is focused on the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi. Simarad outlines in Exploring How and Why Trees Talk to Each Other, plant kinship, both in DNA and care given through mycelium, in order to heal and flourish. A correlation between the plant and human ecologies draws significance to creating experiences to nourish, amidst our current ecological threats. 103

Mycelium presents natural solutions that could replace conventional building materials such as brick, concrete, plastics, particle board and insulation, while being more efficient, more ecologically responsible and cost competitive.104 When harvested and mixed with a substrate the composite may be formed into bricks or panels, dried, and used as strong building material, as discussed in Emerging Materials: Mycelium Brick, by Ilvy Bonnefinn.105 The mycelium brick can be cultivated over a four week period, creating an efficient product in both the context of time and accessibility.

Janet McGaw, Alex Andrionopoulos and Alessandro Liuti, in their research paper, Tangled Tales of Mycelium and Architecture: Learning From Failure, identify properties and additional uses of mycelium as a building alternative in bricks, panels, insulation and flooring.106 The report highlighted that in addition to being water, mould, fire and termite resistant, and a lighter mass than concrete, mycelium is also the most natural and ancient form of polymer. It shares properties similar to synthetic polymers without the toxicity and environmental impact.107 Therefore, Its binding capacity is an ideal eco-solution for adhesives. This material also exhibits an exceptional thermal mass and acoustic properties.

As a completely organic substance mycelium building products harness a circular economy reducing embodied energy. This is particularly observable in the process from inception to end of life. Mushrooms /fungi may be grown on site, combined with crop waste (to act as a substrate) from the Mudgee community-grape mark, coffee grounds and other agricultural waste, such as lucerne, then moulded and dried on site through both passive and traditional drying methods, cast at approximately 90 degrees. This process reduces fossil fuel use and at end of life the product is 100% biodegradable and may be returned to the landscape, without any impact.

Whilst this innovation on materiality has been gaining momentum, there is opportunity for further experimentation in both material compositions and form, particularly as an authentic consideration for this project. To explore the process of cultivation, texture and properties, I undertook an experiment to grow mycelium to the end product of a brick. Information about the process of cultivation was provided by Russell Whittam, from Aussie Mushrooms.

A C T I O N R E S E A R C H

Cultivating a mycelium brick A visual map

To explore the process of cultivation, I undertook an experiment to grow mycelium to the end product of a brick.

Mycelium spores (Ganoderma Stayaertanum/Australian Reishi) + substrate (grape marc) + substrate (lucerne) + humidity + time = brick

1. Prepare mould and workspace by swabbing in alcohol and wear a mask to prevent contamination

2. Inoculate the substrate with mycelium. Mix thoroughly.

3. Pack the mycelium/substrate into a mould. Tighter packing will produce a smoother end product.

4. Place the mould into a plastic bag and seal. Mycelium requires oxygen to grow. Seal the bag and store between 20-24 degrees celsius , in a dark space.

5. Let it grow- approximately four weeks

6. Bake at 90 degrees celsius for 4 hours to stop the growth and cure the brick.

Mycelium spores Substrate: Grape marc

Substrate: Lucerne Mycelium Brick

Cultivating Mycelium at 2 weeks

Cultivating Mycelium at 3 weeks

Cultivating Mycelium at 4 weeks

Addressing Site Limitations & Opportunities with Mudgee Waste and Recycling Facility

One of the constraints of Munna Reserve, identified in the previous site analysis, is that it shares a boundary with the waste and recycling facility (the tip, as referred to by locals). This has proven, through my research, to be another opportunistic catalyst for regenerative design and an extension into healing Country.

“Mycoremediation is the process of harnessing fungi’s natural abilities to break down materials for a beneficial effect.”108 Landfill has a high concentration of COD ammonia and specific compounds, which are dependent on the age of the landfill. Fungi can be used to treat landfill and industrial waste water. It has a greater toxicity removal efficacy compared to traditional landfill treatment processes. “Pestalotiopsis fungi are capable of plastic decomposition in anaerobic conditions, making them an ideal candidate for use in landfills.”109

A study by Katharina Unger of Utrecht University, and outlined in “This Edible Mushroom From The Amazon Thrives By Eating Plastic,”110 by Andrea Steffern, discovered that Oyster mushrooms/ fungi are still edible throughout this plastic decomposition process, ensuring consumer’s wellbeing (human, flora and fauna) is not compromised. Unger claims, “that once the mushroom has eaten everything up, there is no plastic left in the mushroom, and it tastes “sweet with the smell of anise or licorice.”111 It was also noted that plastic-eating mushrooms remove pollutants from the soil and convert waste into biofuels.

There is great potential to grow the mushrooms/fungi at the waste management facility, regenerate soil to compost, purify waterways, whilst providing mycelium for the bricks, composting for the community and site, natural habitats112 for fauna and a natural organic food. The reciprocal relationship between sustainable construction and regeneration of Country within this project is enabled on multiple scales and emerges as a blueprint process for a circular economy and sustainable practice. weeks after heat has been applied

R A M M E D E A R T H

Rammed earth is a sustainable construction technique where varying proportions of earth, road base, sand, cement and crusher dust is pneumatically compacted into rigid form work in 200mm layers until the desired height is reached.113 Rammed earth presents a viable alternative to conventional high thermal mass wall construction such as concrete. The rammed earth is formed on site, using earth excavated for the buildings footings and slabs, reducing both embodied and operational energy of the design, therefore allowing for a lower carbon footprint. What is taken from Country for the physical architecture, is returned back through its construction.

As a non toxic material, it presents a safer option to its inhabitants and the broader environment and waterways, whilst also being 100% recyclable at its end of life. Rammed earth walls are constructed to load bearing tolerances (350-400mm) in required areas and can have greater compressive strength than concrete.114

Aesthetically, rammed earth creates a natural relationship to compliment the other materials used across the site and is malleable supporting the organic forms. Rammed earth walls allow for high thermal mass, absorbing heat and slowly releasing the heat energy over time; this process is known as thermal lag.115

The material also regulates humidity and exchanges air through the walls. Rammed earth has a high acoustic rating due to its density and the thickness of the walls ensures noise within and between spaces is reduced.116 Additionally, rammed earth is weather resistant and durable once built and sealed. Termites are unable to penetrate the rammed earth mass. It is also fireproof with CSIRO rating a 250mm thick wall as 4 hour fire resistant.117 Fire resistance is essential for this project given the site location and BAL rating.

S O L A R H A R V E S T I N G + G L A Z I N

O N S I D E R A T I O N S

Solar Harvesting Glass

Glazing across the programs combines solar harvesting and bird safe glass innovations. The Ubiquitous engineered solar harvesting glass panels118 are coated in an organic material which harvests and selectively transmits visible light while absorbing and converting invisible ultraviolet and infrared light into electricity whilst maintaining the aesthetic of a traditional windowtransparent.119 The coating “is similar to double and triple silver coated low-E coatings that have emissivity of only a few percent and solar factor/solar heat gain coefficient as low as 0.25, while simultaneously achieving power conversion efficiencies as high as 10%.”120 The panels work in conjunction with other solar panels across the schema to power lights as well air conditioning when needed. The panels are also made with non-toxic materials.121

Glazing considerations for bird life

Ornilux glass122 appears smooth and clear to the human eye but it possesses a unique, invisible characteristic that allows birds to see the obstacle in front of them and hopefully avoid a collision. The glass is glazed with a pattern that mimics a spider’s web and is made of an ultraviolet-reflective coating only visible to birds as they are capable of seeing a broader UV spectrum than humans.123 “Results showed that an overwhelming 76% of birds managed to recognise and avoid the glass laced with ultraviolet-reflective patterns.”124

G C

Ubiquitous Glass Ornilux Glass

Action over words, builds foundational trust, collaboration and authentic representations.

This phase of the research was significant in developing further insight into the experiences, perspectives and values of the participants, in order to augment a level of knowing and understanding to inform the design phase.

The key consideration for this aspect of the research was to protect participants who participated through survey, interviews, codesign, consultative groups and broader site engagement. Ensuring research goals and objectives were clear, principles of engagement established for authentic co design and protecting identities, were crucial aspects of the research.

Uncovering new knowledge and shared experiences was predominantly achieved through quantitative and qualitative data sets, inclusive of surveys and ethnographic practices, through storytelling and immersion on and with Country, alongside collaborative engagement with Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council and the broader community. The dissemination of this data has been curated as summative reflections through the following lenses and raw data held in the Project Digital Archive.

W H A T B E C A M E K N O W N

Q U A L I T A T I V E D A T A

S U R V E Y + I N T E R V I E W S

Both the survey, Gathering Insight: Family and Domestic Violence in NSW125 and interview responses were previously referred to in the ‘Research Phase: What we Know’ (page 27) as supporting evidence to the literature and statistics focused on Intergenerational Trauma and Domestic Violence; a national health crises with Aboriginal and regional women, most impacted through inaccessibility to services and ongoing support.

S U R V E Y

Gathering Insight: Family and Domestic Violence in Regional NSW126

The survey consisted of twenty four questions predominantly concentrated on ascertaining information related to services for regional women and children experiencing domestic violence in the geographic areas of Mid-Western Regional Council (Mudgee, Gulgong, Lue, Ulan, Rylstone and Kandos and surrounds). The survey response window was a week, which created limitations for gathering data over a larger sample group.

Of the 26 respondents:

- 80.0% identified as female, with - more than are half between the ages of 35- 60 years. - all participants were from the local area and - 31 % identified as Aboriginal.

- 15.4 % spoke a language other than English at home ( Mandarin, Hindi, Italian and Ukrainian)

- 57.7% had children in their care and of that 57.7%, 80% are full time carers. - 81% of the children are aged under 12, with 37.5% aged between 13-18years. - Additionally 26.9% had other adults in their care always or sometimes. Whilst 46.2 % of respondents had accessed domestic violence services, 91% of those strongly disagreed that their needs had been met. For the remaining 53.8 who had not accessed services

or who were unsure, most indicated that shame, safety, lack of information, inaccessibility due to perceived need and waiting times were the key determiners for not doing so.

“I tried to access but because I had a job, no one would really help me. What they couldn’t understand was while I had a job , I couldn’t afford to pay for anything because my husband was controlling all the finances. I had nowhere to go and no money - but to the community I was perceived as a confident, established professional (due to my work role).”127 Survey participant.

Overwhelmingly, the key services identified by the group as core to their needs and that of their children are: services with little to no cost, financial and legal advice/support, centralised services, safety and security, short term housing and counselling services, all located in the local community. Essentially, the commonalities draw significance to basic needs and living conditions conducive to human rights. This was again echoed in response to inclusions within the proposed Women’s Refuge and Wellbeing space, with 92.6 % or the group indicating that secure and safe housing was of the greatest priority here, within a regional context, in a developed country, such as Australia. The commentary throughout the survey indicates similarities in story and circumstances, with women in situations of coercive control often alone, without support and living in fear; their courage in voice and sharing. What remains at the forefront at this point in writing is the women not represented in this survey- the ones who may not have had the opportunity to respond, or those who may deeply and instinctively be resisting the realities of their circumstances, as postulated by Jess Hill, in See What You Made Me Do,128 “...we don’t want to know that the same forces that so blissfully draw us together can also become our single greatest threat.”129

I NT E R V I E W S

Interviews were conducted with eight participants, healthcare practitioners (2) and domestic violence services staff (1), alongside victim survivors (5). To protect the identity of each they have chosen to remain anonymous and will be referred to as they were previously:

Participant 1

Housing Plus Mudgee Staff Member

Participant 2

Mudgee Community Health (MHC) Care worker

Participant 3

Psychologist and Health Care Professional

Each of the three interviewees expressed thanks for the opportunity to share their perspectives in this space and to be able to begin a conversation about the challenges faced by those experiencing trauma in regional areas. As a social emergency, the impacts of domestic violence on the broader community can be seen in the physical responses and engagement of these health professionals. For these three women, many of the victims they are engaging with each and every day are known to them, some intimately; that is the nature of support services in regional areas.

“...there is great stigma in small communities when everyone knows everyone and perpetrators can know where victims are.”130 Participant 1

Each of the participants indicated a need to focus on education, as a catalyst to building agency, confidence and autonomy. Education not only for the victim-survivors, but for the perpetrators and the diverse community. Education is termed broadly, however the opportunities for engagement in such a context falls to opportunity and commitment. Both which are afforded in the parameters of this project. For education to be successful it requires the establishment of relationships initially, trust and communication; the reciprocity of all stakeholders.

Identified as an immediate concern by Participants 1 and 2, was the need for early intervention services. Access within the Mid-Regional Council area is by all accounts at crisis point, with women forced to leave the community to access accommodation. There was clarity initially around the need for crisis housing, but also longer term facilities, which provided opportunities for women to engage with others, whilst maintaining their privacy.

“There needs to be a variety of spaces, private and public etc. At the moment, we also can’t facilitate childcare or supervision. I think that deters a lot of people.”131 Participant 2

The ethnographic data from the victim-survivors will be tabled in the Journey Maps on page 77.

C O D E S I G N M A P P I N G

The codesign mapping is informed by the ‘Principles of Codesign’ and traces the process of engagement with MLALC, as the anchor of the project design, in parallel with identified stakeholders. As critical friends, their voice and agency guides this project design, to the com mon space of healing, In Between, now and into the future.

Such a process, has not been linear and therefore requires a commitment to deep listening, which is reflexive and adaptive throughout, both in process and design. Scanned notes are accessed via the Project Digital Archive.132

CO-DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Prioritise relationships to develop reciprocity through ongoing connections and respect

Build agencyknowledge sharing between all to create change

A seat at the tableopportunities and considerations for all stakeholders

Feedback loopsestablishing agreed practices for collaboration and communication

Inclusiveof all human and non human species

Iterativecyclical processes of reflection to enhance design

- Building Relationships

- Engagement to learn each others stories and initiate permissioning to engage with MLALC

- Build vision for the future of the project including expectations and agreed practices to inform the project principles.

- Knowledge Building, Creating Agency

- Four site visits over the month with MLALC and on my own.

- Walking on and with Country alongside MLALC members-learning about cool burning for land management and the use of native pines in the woodlands to make spears.

- Community services visit Munna often to engage in bush regeneration, basket weaving and community days.

- Bush medicine; the medicinal uses of Bergia for ulcers and throat infections.

- Learn of the Emu in the Sky and the significance of astronomy to - Aboriginal culture as a way of living, through deep listening

- Interviews and surveys with broader community

- Collaborating and Communicating

- Outline expectations for the design brief: facilities to provide spaces for learning with women and school groups

- Outdoor/indoor spaces for teaching traditional skills

- Community gallery and storage for the curation of exhibitions

- Workshop spaces-women and mens’ business

- Emergency housing for Indigenous and non Indigenous women and children.

- Architecture that is purposefully thought about “Last time we had an architect do something for us, they just turned up with the plans finished, no discussion, just done. We don’t operate like that.”

“We don’t want boxes like these shipping containers. Lots of new sites have shipping containers for their buildings. The geometry isn’t right.”

Building Relationships continues through:

- Knowledge Building, Creating Agency

- Three site visits over the month to retrace the steps across Country and reflect on placements across the site. Specifically looking at limitations and opportunities.

- Identification of ‘keepsake’ sites such as the Yarning Circle and fallen trees to be enablers for habitat spaces.

- Interviews and surveys with the broader community.

- Walking on Country with MLALC to identify areas for regeneration, recreation and community use. Note: Vegetation continuously changing (native indigo-use as medicinal and as a dye)

- Elders shared knowledge of the use of the Stringybark trees to make coolamons.

- Slow Procession on and Across Country: night site visit to capture the Emu in the Sky -photographic artefact, reflexive practices to listen to Country-visual/aural/haptic experiences reflected in drawings and annotations.

- Collaborating and Communicating

- Shared some initial drawings about concept and form- curved in response to initial conversations. Positive feedback around the forms and connection to Aboriginal World View, keepsake sites welcome and initial discussions around possible materiality.

- Consideration of fauna movement across the site-gaps in fences/safe sites for refuge. Shared thinking around inclusive access to burrows and roof structures to facilitate nesting.

- Focus on community inclusivity.

“Let’s set an example for other communities to do the same.” Aleisha Lonsdale MLALC - on inclusive community spaces.

“A lot of people in Mudgee don’t even know they are Aboriginal because of the silent generation.133 We need to educate people about the difference between heritage and identity.” Aleisha Lonsdale, MLALC

- Discussion around security measures- the importance of creating boundaries , but not prison like for the housing component. Geometry to be critical at this stage/site considerations for storage.

- Feedback Loop- MLALC dissemination of information and design brief to date with Committee members and Aboriginal community/emails and phone conversations lagged regarding site access and response from community.

October

Building Relationships continues through:

- Knowledge Building, Creating Agency

- Weaving and Yarning Session held at Mudgee Arts Precinct- community forum and feedback loop

- Sharing my knowledge regarding materiality- mycelium and the potential for this organic material to be considered in the design./Identification on site in the Pine forest area to grow mycelium and create a circular economy of waste recycling plants for regeneration on the tip site.

- Kinship- community raises a child and it is not an individual responsibility-link to community spaces and housing.

“Our kids need to be on Country, looked after by all of us.” Aleisha Lonsdale MLALC

- Collaborating and Communicating-emails/site visits/phone calls

- Sharing reviewed design schema and placement in relation to keepsake sites and thresholds and passages across Country/Snapshots of visualisations to communicate design.

“We really like the curved buildings. The women’s housing kind of looks like a coolamon. We need these facilities.” Aleisha Lonsdale MLALC

“We like the indoor and outdoor spaces. We spend a lot of time on Country, so having the education spaces outside and inside is great.” Aleisha Lonsdale MLALC

- Significant landmarks and integration with the architecture: Apple Tree/Lomandra reeded area/Dance circle- How can these be integrated in the procession across Country?

- Feedback from community: Eco toilets/solar power can we make the site off grid for future sustainability/positive indications regarding flexible spaces to facilitate a range of educational and social programs.

Building Relationships continues through:

- Knowledge Building, Creating Agency

November- Reflection on Weaving and Yarning session- the impact of domestic violence on grandparents and extended families in response to Kinship and care.

- Skills of weaving alongside community engagement- the value of activities and education to create relationships and healing opportunities between self and others.

- Conversations in the community around domestic violence have been elevated.

- Weaving and Yarning sessions suggested to become a regular meeting group in 2023.

- Collaborating and Communicating

- Feedback Loops: Sharing design to this stage and acknowledgment of the process and future steps toward design consolidation-review by community

- Project visualisations shared and annotated.

- Group weaving/basket making sculpture to symbolise story, relationship and agency.

- Feedback from Weaving and Yarning session

“The spaces you are proposing to create at Munna have the potential to reach everyone within the community.

Grandparents could find comfort and support learning about younger generations through engagement.”

Community member

“Council needs to take action -our community needs these facilities.” Community participant.

“What I most appreciate about this project is that it is not just for Aboriginal people, or other marginalised groups. It focuses on the needs of all and brings us together. I am frustrated with divisions created by red tape.” Community participant.

FRAGMENT 7

J O U R N E Y M A P S

The following journey maps are stories, experiences and expectations of victim survivours within Mudgee and the surrounding areas. I have used the data collated from interviews in order to walk with each of the women, to better understand their needs and experiences of space and placemaking.

To protect the identity of participants, profiles have been created with pseudo names.

E T H N O G R A P H I C R E S E A R C H

Participant 4: Jessica’s Story

Jessica has three kids and has been separated from her ex-partner for some time. She is Australian and is a mother, a friend, an artist, art teacher and active community member.

Jessica’s experience of domestic abuse escalated throughout the marriage and like most women, her children were exposed to the violence. Among many things, Jessica’s ex-husband was controlling, critical and unsupportive of her profession and ensured that she had no identity, stability and autonomy over her life.

During the peak of Jessica’s abuse, she had little access to the services within the area. Her ex-husband controlled all of their funds. She indicated that she had no knowledge of the process and systems of justice and therefore didn’t know who, where or what to ask. Jessica felt unsupported in the community before, during and after her separation and still feels unsafe when it comes to any situation with her ex-partner.

Jessica’s separation from her ex-partner was a significant time of learning, unlearning and reflection. “You don’t leave even though you know its wrong, but you are so manipulated by them that you think you can fix it by behaving a particular way and remember what they once pretend to be. They pretend to be someone they are notwho was I in love with? Who did I marry? Who did I have a child with? That is a very hard realisation to face.”

What is important to Jessica at this time?

For Jessica and her children, the most important things at this time are around access/affordability of health services and educational programs and places for victim survivors.

“Our current health system has a very linear approach to things. I have been bounced from one health practitioner to another and it is too hard to communicate and access. I can’t afford it and support after my kids as well. We need somewhere we can go and access the services we need, in one place, where the professionals can communicate with one another directly.”

“I really want to understand domestic abuse more deeply so I can educate myself, my children and other people.”

What does Jessica need?

Jessica’s focus and needs at this point in time are having access to services that are affordable, collaborative and flexible, as well has having some guidance and education in regards to this new chapter of her life.

“At the moment, talk therapy is not enough. Brain spotting, EMDR, rapid eye movement therapy, art therapy are all avenues that should be accessible.”

“How can I follow the system and hold him accountable for his actions?”

“A big part of healing is moving towards a positive approach- it is hard when the joy just gets zapped out of you.”

What are Jessica’s expectations?

Jessica’s expectations of this space are focused on the centralisation of services and affordable access to facilities. She wants to be able to come to a place where most, if not all, of her service needs are made available and accessible.

“At the moment, I would love to access to an affordable psychologist. My previous quote was $180 per hourthat is the difference between my groceries for the week to feed my kids..”

“There is a great demand and need for domestic violence specialist within the community in order to directly understand the situations at hand, rather than a standard psychologist with no domestic violence training. I would expect that this place has those services available.”

“During Covid-19, telehealth was my only option to access talk therapy. Now {post Covid-19}, face to face interactions with services providers is essential.”

“I think it is really important for the spaces to feel peaceful, safe and have lots of natural light. Direct access to the outdoors and a space for my kids to play where it doesn’t intrude on other people.”

Participant 5: Emily’s Story

Emily moved to Mudgee around 10 years ago after separating from her ex-partner. She relocated to small country town to be as far away from her ex-partner as possible, yet within an acceptable distance for shared custody of their young son. Emily is a mother, a friend, passionate professional and community member.

Emily recalls her relationship becoming domestically violent from the time she announced she was pregnant and rapidly increased throughout the relationship. Like many women, Emily had to give up important work opportunities for her and her sons safety, mental health and security. Emily speaks of her experience in family court as “one of the lucky ones,” due to her sons age at the time and expedition around this. The legal and counseling fees Emily and her son incurred were not sustainable and had great financial impact on their futures. Emily recounted that although there is little to no access to services in the Mudgee area for women and children, when she lived in Sydney with her expartner, her profession and situation prevented her from accessing any services that were available in an urban area.

Although Emily and her partner have been separated for some years, she is still fearful for her safety. “The control and abuse never ends. He has since remarried and that still does not stop the control.”

What is important to Emily at this time?

Emily’s focus at this time is centred around safety, support and education. The abuse and control towards Emily and her son is ongoing, ensuring that they are in constant fear and unsure of what is to come. She wants there to be much more educational resources available for victim survivours and abusers.

“It is a matter of ‘when’ something happens, not ‘if’. I am in constant fear of what he will do to me.”

“I try to validate our son constantly- teaching him to break this cycle. That it isn’t his responsibility to keep both of his parents happy.”

What does Emily need?

Emily’s needs right now are centred around her and her sons well being, education, healing, learning and making time for herself. She needs access to a variety of services that are supportive.

“I have found that often domestic violence services can’t help you. There is a great lack of support and reflectiveness- it was almost like I was the problem.”

“This whole process is really hard for my son. For a long time, he didn’t want to go an visit his dad but it was the court mandated- there was not much I could do. I felt so horrible for making him go.”

What are Emily’s expectations?

Emily’s expectations of the space are grounded in security, autonomy, education and healing for both herself and her son.

“Often there isn’t much choice- I would want a variety of spaces where I can make my own decisions, not have to ask for permission and have an independent lifestyle.”

“I think it is essential that there are skilled, trained, specialist staff members to engage and work with.”

“I don’t want to be fully isolated but still need security and privacy. I will never let the sanctity of my home be breached.”

“Lots of sensory experiences and outdoor areas.”

Participant 6: Lucy’s Story

Lucy relocated to Mudgee 30 years ago, from Sydney, with her now ex-husband to start a family and grow a local business. Lucy has migrant parents and is a mother, a teacher, a creative, a friend and active community member. The move saw Lucy become quite isolated from her family and friends, the first step toward a domestically violent environment. Like many other women, Lucy has since identified that her abuse began when she fell pregnant with their first child and escalated from then on. Emotional, financial and physical abuse grounded Lucy’s everyday life for over 20 years.

Lucy discovered her ex-partners stalking and affair and when confronted, her ex-husband filed for divorce. Lucy described how her ex-partner is perceived by the local community; an honourable business and family man. This community perception of him and his personal town connections/relationships meant that support from legal and protection services was jeopardised and conflicts of interest were rife. Lucy described the significant struggles faced by her and her daughter in receiving any support within the area. Lucy stated that there was no access to housing services, legal advice and affordable counseling both during and after her abusive life with her exhusband and felt as though she was unable to support her daughter through this time. Currently, Lucy and her daughter are in an on going property settlement and the financial expenses have left them staying at a friends house.

What is important to Lucy at this time?

At this point of Lucy’s journey, the most important things to her are around her and her daughter’s safety and well being.

“Everything is so confusing at the moment. I can hardly keep up with what day it is. Right now, the most important, most integral thing is a safe place to live. We don’t have a safe place to call home, even if it is temporary and I think that if we had a secure space, we can try to deal with all the other issues we are facing.”

“I am really needing some legal and financial advise that isn’t bias in favour of my ex-husband. It is hard to find anyone willing to help you in this community.”

What does Lucy need?

Lucy and her daughter are in need of consistent housing, access to counseling services and a safe/private environment for their personal security.

“Our immediate needs at the moment, I would say, are pretty basic- the bare minimum really. A roof over our heads that is safe and warm. Beyond that, my daughter really needs someone impartial to speak with and at the moment I just can’t afford to supply that to her. I am really worried about how she is handling everything.”

“My daughter needs a stable home. Nothing in her life at the moment is stable.”

What are Lucy’s expectations?

Lucy’s expectations of this space are grounded in security and privacy. She expressed that at this point in time that her and her daughter are not ready to engage deeply with the community and staff, but both want to maintain passive engagement.

“Right now, I am not ready to speak about my experiences with other women. I would like to be able to have places where I can be by myself and when I am ready, I can transition to new spaces.”

“I really want to feel safe. Safe from my ex-husband, his friends, the police. My daughter and I have had no stability or a home where we feel safe for so many years I’ve lost count. I want to be able to go to bed at night and not have to feel like I need to sleep with one eye open.”

“My daughter needs a variety of spaces to study for her year 11/12 exams- spaces where she feels safe and comfortable to do the work she needs.”

“If we could have a perfect space, it would feel safe, but not like a prison. Somewhere with lots of light and that feels warm and secure.”

Participant 7: Tia’s Story

Tia has lived in Mudgee her whole life and is a proud Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi woman. She is a mother, a friend, a daughter, a professional and an active community member. Tia has been separated from her Australian partner for a few weeks and is struggling to find somewhere to live.

Tia as known her ex-partner for most of her life. They went to school together and had the same friends. Tia mentioned that as children, her now ex-partner was physical and rough to play with. This behaviour transcended to adulthood and has progressively become worse over the last 5 years. Her ex-partner has prevented Tia from teaching their children about their culture and history. As Tia is in the very early stages of separation, she is unsure what the near future looks like for her and her children. Tia and her partner have 3 kids and she also cares for 2 other children full time.

Tia and her 5 children have been living with family for the last few weeks and are needing somewhere to live where they don’t feel as though they are an inconvenience on family. Tia has no access to her finances and has been unable to pay bills and childcare expenses, therefore having to stay home from work to look after the young children.

Tia stated that she is concerned about leaving and is fearful for her and her children’s lives. She is extremely scared that her children will be taken away from her and given to her abusive ex-partner due to her background. She is worried that no where will be able to take them in as there are 6 people in total.

What is important to Tia at this time?

The things that are most important to Tia at this time are finding somewhere that can accommodate her and all of her children and for her children to remain in her care where they are safe and supported. Tia also wants to be able to engage with Indigenous service providers. In her previous dealings with non Indigenous service providers, there has been a lack of cultural awareness and understanding.

“I am so worried that they will take my children away from me.”

“We need to stay somewhere for a while that is secure and where my kids feel safe. They don’t feel safe right now.”

What does Tia need?

Tia and her children’s need are focused around having a safe and private space to live. Tia’s children need access to educational services and Tia needs guidance and support with her separation, finances and mental health support.

“I want to keep my kids close and safe when everything is so fresh but I know they still need to go to school and daycare to learn and socialise.”

“I feel like I am stuck. I can’t guarantee anything at the moment for myself or for my children. I really don’t know where to begin.”

What are Emily’s expectations?

Tia’s expectations of this space are focused on housing, security and service support. Tia wants her children to have space to play outdoors whilst being safe. She wants to be able to keep them close at all times.

“My kids love to be outside. I would love for there to be a space where they can play but I can still see them at all times. Somewhere for me to be outside too.”

“I am worried that we will stick out from the other people. It would be nice to have a space where I can teach my kids about our culture.”

“I want to be able to engage with Indigenous people as well as non Indigenous people. Sometimes it can be hard to communicate the dynamics of my culture so having someone around who understands it deeply, would be very comforting.”

“I want to feel connected to my Country, to the land and to the sky as much as possible. I think that will really help me along my journey.”

Participant 8: Gemma’s Story

Gemma has no children and has just recently separated from her partner. She is Australian with migrant parents and is a daughter, a friend, a hard worker and an avid hiker.

Gemma’s experiences and exposure to family and domestic violence began at a young age with her father being abusive towards her mother, her siblings and self. At the time, Gemma was unable to receive any support and as a result, left home at a young age. She no longer has anything to do with her father and mother, but remains close to her siblings. As a result of the trauma Gemma experienced in her childhood, she developed a series of medical conditions that impact her daily.

Gemma and her partner work at the same location and for the same business, so the separation has put her job in jeopardy. Gemma indicates that the abuse has always been present in the relationship but escalates significantly to physical and sexual assault when her ex-partner is on a rotating shift roster or when he drinks alcohol.

Gemma has left her partner multiple times but in an isolated area and with no control over her finances, she has no where else to go. Gemma believes that she has ended up in another domestically violent environment because of her childhood and not knowing enough about domestic and family violence in order to escape it.

What is important to Gemma at this time?

At this point on Gemma’s journey, the most important things to her are having a safe place to live, job security and services support.

“I feel like I have no where to go so I just keep on going back. I have one sibling in the area who just welcomed their first child and some friends but I am too embarrassed to tell them anything. I really don’t want to be burden.”

“I am so scared that I am going to lose my job. I have no financial security even though I have been working full time and saving money for the last 4 years- he controls all my accounts. I can’t afford to lose my job as well. How will I afford my medication?”

What does Gemma need?

Gemma needs support in leaving her current situation and to be guaranteed somewhere safe to live for as long as she may need. Gemma also needs some financial advice and access to a variety of health services.

“I just need somewhere safe that I can go and not have to worry about him finding me. I’m not sure what would happen if he knew I was actually leaving and getting help to do so.”

“My health conditions have gotten worse over the years as my environment got worse. I haven’t seen my specialist or GP in over 18 months- mainly because I can’t afford it or because he won’t let me go.”

“I wish that I could tell my friends and brother what has been going on, but I am just so embarrassed to admit that I have been so serious with someone just like my dad.”

What are Gemma’s expectations?

Gemma’s expectations are centred around safety, privacy and education. Gemma wants to be able to have her own space and access to the outdoor environment.

“Right now, if I could, I would just run away into the bush and never look back. I really love being outside- I feel so free and content. I would hope that there is opportunity for me to feel like that but be safe at the same time.”

“I have lived with someone my whole life. Family, friends and now my ex-partner. I would love to have a space that I can call my own and decorate it the way I like.”

“I need to access my money. When I left the last time, he told me that while he still had control of my money, he still had control of me.”

“Although I don’t have kids myself, I have spent a lot of time around children. I would hope that there would be opportunities for me to engage with other women and their children.”

A S L O W P R O C E S S I O N O F P O S S I B I L I T Y

Without relationships, without memorial experiences, there is no knowledge.

Knowledge as a system is a complex entity. The fragmentation of experiences and learnings told through oral histories, stories, songs and art are generational and built upon relationships formed throughout time, locally and globally. The layering of these knowledge fragments about sky, land and water and their interconnectedness, not only create conversations of cultural identity, but ensure knowledge is shared, valued and retained. Knowledge becomes fused deeply in memories of place; the songlines134 of Aboriginal culture.

This significance to enduring relationships with sky,land and water is foregrounded in First Knowledges, Songlines, “Indigenous cultures are dependent on their memories for everything they know….Without this knowledge, the people simply would not have survived, physically or culturally.”135 Furthermore, “All knowledge, no matter where you store it, is based on a memory……. Every time you learn something, new physical neural pathways are established in your brain- the memory is actually physically laid down. If you don’t reinforce it fairly quickly, then you will lose that memory.”136

The correlation to Place-Making to retain knowledge through spatial mapping developed in the brain, is grounded in neuroscience research.137 For Aboriginal people landscape is centric to knowledge building and knowledge sharing. Procession through spaces creates multi-sensory engagement, where ‘treading lightly,’ is established through intimate relationships and layered relational experiences of knowledge building and nourishment, that grows and evolves from now to next.

T H E E M U I N T H E S K Y FRAGMENT

Standing on Country, at the Munna Reserve in August, I was overcome by the intensity of the Celestial Emu (Dark Emu). I was fortunate to be able to capture these moments, on site, through photographs; a truly grounding experience. The ambiguous presence of the dark spaces and the unveiling of this form, spoke to the narrowness of my knowledge, my knowing in the most profound way that I will never look to the sky or land, as I did yesterday.

The Emu in the Sky, is recognised as the dark space stretching across The Milky Way. During the summer months, the Milky Way dominates the night sky and as the seasons change in March toward winter, the Milky Way continues to be the main actor under lights that dance across the sky. This is the scene that the eye is drawn to, the scene that I had forever tracked when I looked up into the darkness.

The sky though, is composed of dark spaces too. For the Wiradjuri Nation and the Mowgee people, these dark spaces are that Dark Emu, or the Celestial Emu. The dreaming story of the Celestial Emu connects with the breeding cycle of the Emu, across seasons and months, correlating with seasonal planting, reproduction and harvesting and life on land.

Between April and May, the Emu first appears fully in the sky and is positioned as though it appears to be running. On land, this coincides with mating season, where in chase, the females run to pursue the males. Through June and July, the Emu can be seen sitting horizontally, symbolising the nesting season on land, whereby Emu eggs are available for collection, as an important food source for winter. Community are reminded that only taking what is needed, is ethically grounded in sustainable practice. The Emu, protecting the young, provides a learning for Aboriginal men, about their own, “roles in protecting children in their communities,”139 as discussed in the fourth book of First Knowledges, Astronomy, Sky Country, by Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli.140 During August and September, the Emu leaves its place of nesting and dives toward land, signaling that it is too late to collect eggs and that new life is about to be realised. The correlation to seasons in Australia, is a signifier of spring and the abundance of life at this time.

For Aboriginal people the knowledge of the sky, land and water are one. The nexus of all is lived through ecological, medicinal, celestial and technological knowledge systems. The value of relationships and the interconnectedness of all matter positions us all as one ecology.

“Our spirituality is oneness and an interconnectedness with all that lives and breathes, even with all that does not live and breathe.” Mudrooroo141

“Look into the space between the stars, what do you see?”138

All “Emu in the Sky.” images captured in conjunction with Ambercreative

FRAGMENT 9

M O M E N T S W I T H C O U N T R Y P R O S P E C T + R E F U G E

P O L A R O I D S

The processional mapping informed the density and convergence of these fragmented moments or markers, across the site and identified experiences with and within Country to nourish and heal, without any architectural intervention, as documented in the polaroid photographs. Spaces of refuge and prospect across the site were identified through the co-presence of flora and fauna; rabbits, kangaroos, wombats (in plain site, through scat or burrows) to consider spaces of refuge and prospect across the site for these stakeholders, at different times of the day and late afternoon.

M A P P I N G

FRAGMENTED MOMENTS ON COUNTRY

Country is living. Country is healing. Country is unified. Country is knowing.

Authentic relationships on and with Country come from deep listening, time, immersion and reflexive perspectives. Through many site visits, over many months, with various community members and often by myself, my relationship to Country as a whole and part began to flourish into something I had not yet encountered before. Navigating the site via vegetation landmarks, subtle tracks, thresholds and passages, over time I was able to identify fragmented moments, across Country, that operated in their own right, but also as interconnected silvers of healing, that would meet and converge at some precise yet blurred point.

Each fragmented moment offered something uniquely different from the last, whilst providing comfort and soothing in their similarities. Dense pine vegetation and opportunistic clearings, flowing water and shaded banks, tall gums and rustling leaves; each moment made me feel, think and connect to Country in way that was as if I was one with it.

1. Various fragmented moments where identified across the site and anchored in the landscape (Frame 1).

2. Journey lines or axis were developed between the anchor points (fragmented moments) to establish a connection between and across Country (Frame 2).

3. Journey lines between fragmented moments intersect one another, highlighting initial points on convergence. These intersections are identified and anchored in the landscape (Frame 3).

4. Intersection anchors from journey lines are enhanced with circle markers to highlight density occurring at these locations (Frame 4).

5. Process three is repeated (placing anchor points) on the intersection of circle markers in relation to fragmented sites. Process four is repeated and circle markers are placed on intersection points (Frame 5).

The processional mapping process determined the density and convergence of these fragmented moments across the site and identified experiences with and within Country that heal without any architectural intervention. The design project is informed by connection, identification and mapping of these rich, deep and spiritual locations and markers.

M A P P I N G

VEGETATION DENSITY PROSPECT AND REFUGE FOR NON HUMAN SPECIES

Country is dense. Country is vast. Country is closed. Country is open.

Prospect and refuge in both a conceptual and physical sense, is determined by the landscape through the fluidity of thresholds and passages, densities and open spaces. Mapping the density of vegetation across the site identified the tangible, physical locations and intangible, experiential moments of enclosure and exposure. Solitude and presence interchange across the site; a layered experience of relationship and connection.

Rich in texture, the landscape carves and defines subtle tracks for rhythmic navigation and guides one to and from fragmented moments of reflection, transitioning in and between the complex layers of Country.

The density mapping ensures that the architectural fragments are considered at one with the landscape and located in areas that are already cleared or have little vegetation that can be worked around, letting Country be what it wants to be. Such densities across the site indicate non human species gathering areas and habitat; these to remain untouched.

M A P P I N G

SITES OF IMPORTANCE SITES OF TRAGEDY

Country is wise. Country is resilient. Country is scarred.

To highlight the severe impact of colonisation on Country and community, townships across the Central West were mapped with the same logic as the site based mapping (page 96) to understand the density and convergence of sites of importance and sites of tragedy in relation to imposed townships.

Towns (Mudgee, Rylstone, Kandos, Bathurst, Wellington, Dubbo) operate as anchors (white dots); a representation of the centre of town. From these anchors, direct journey lines (axis) between the townships are established.

Sites of importance such as ceremonial sites, landforms and water bodies, as well sites of tragedy such as massacre locations, are plotted in black. These locations have journey lines (axis) between them.

The journey lines (axis) intersect one another; the intersection is identified via a circle. The density of the circles highlights the triadic convergence of the sites of importance and tragedy, in relation to townships.

The mapping indicates the imposition of townships upon sites of importance for the Wiradjuri Nation and the disregard for culture, Country and community.

A T M O S P H E R E O F P L A C E

As part of the research and as a spatial experiment to probe the atmosphere of the site, the time spent on, with and within Country, allowed for the development of an intimate relationships; grounded in slowness and procession. Processioning across and within Munna Reserve, I experienced sensory engagement with space. This meandering was a continuation of the sensory mapping of the site, alone and with members of the community. Haptic experiences of tree structures stability and strengthening forms, vistas, textures within reach and earth underfoot, thresholds and passages creating moments of curiosity and awe, aural experiences of movement of the unseen: water, fauna and industry; a reminder of locality and coexistence and dappled sunlight providing warmth in shaded space and created markers of place in the landscape through light and shadow.

FRAGMENT 10

S T I L L N E S S + S I T T I N G

Opportunities of stillness and procession in and through space, created sentience in prospect and refuge of new paths or directions. Moments of visual, aural and tactile experiences were collected, recorded, archived and stored in a slow space of possibility. Each moment, converging to create an Atmosphere of Place; opportunities for refuge and prospect, knowledge and nourishment. Over the course of 4 months, through various mediums such as, charcoal, ink, graphite, photography and videography, moments were represented to establish and identify the fragmented stages of thinking, feeling and reflecting throughout the project.

Relationship between all matter, human and non human, is essential to the Songlines of Aboriginal culture. Country, welcomes us without permissioning to be with and within place and Aboriginal Songlines, of cultural response and oral narrative, speak through these relationships of knowledge.

Knowledge to nourish. Knowledge to learn respect. Knowledge to heal.

Focusing on the subtle relationships within nature, I studied interaction between, in and around environments at a meso and micro scale, to better understand the interconnectedness of Munna Reserve. The story of Country and relationship Aboriginal peoples have to the land, sky and sea/ water, was integral to the development of these graphite sketches. The emphasis of the physical connection to the sky and the ground, evoked initial thinking of binary oppositions and what could be studied at both extremes, ensuring the ‘in between’ was just as essential to songlines and culture. Sky, earth, trees, grasses, water, flora, fauna, are gifts and knowledge of their care is spoken through stories past and present.

All in County, has place and purpose.

Relationships between all are reciprocal; nurturing respect and experiences for all to flourish.

A selective series of reflexive, emotive drawings, in charcoal, ink and graphite, were undertaken on site, with a sensory focus on aural and olfactory experiences, conducive to memory making of place. This process highlighted the interconnectedness of Country and acted as a reminder that we are never alone on Country.

This series of work is representative of the experiences of resonance, momentary interactions and represented intersections between the bird life and myself on site, tracking movement, density and refuge of species. Engaging deeply with aural senses and less so on the visual, provided a new connection to non-human species and Country.

The thesis explored the opportunities for women healing women, healing Country, In the Space In Between. Established as the void between all matter and moments in time and place, the reimagined Space In Between cultivates opportunities for relationship and experience throughout the project. It has presented itself as an anchor for developing perspective, understanding and engagement through relational experiences of knowledge and nourishment; voice, treaty and truth.

Learnings, Unlearnings and Affirmations were established in the convergence points of relationships in The Spaces In Between throughout the research and design process. This was primarily situated initially in the common space of trauma, between all women and then throughout the research or Nesting Phase, the Space In Between architectural theory and practice.

Within the Nesting Phase, key learnings and unlearnings were established, through the fragments of codesign with the Aboriginal and broader community, ethnography (victim-survivors) and my own relationship with and on Country. The establishing of intimate relationships in the Nesting Phase, the Space In Between created opportunities and experiences of reciprocity through knowledge sharing and authentic engagements of care and nourishment. These relationships and the experiences sculpted the process and architectural design elements for responsive placemaking.

Without the establishment of relationships, with all matter, the authenticity of the project would not have been achieved; relationships are knowledge of Country and culture, for a sustainable future.

Drawing on the fragments of conscious and unconscious, intended and unintended, learning and unlearning throughout the Nest Phase, the following understandings were established and affirmed as essential in reimagining an architectural narrative, which is focused on experience over object, to heal and ensure all in our ecology flourish.

1. There is only one ecology: Dis-ease, dis-stance and dis-connectedness is created through exclusion and a focus on differences. Aboriginal wisdom unites us; sky, water and land as one. Oneness and interconnectedness with all, living and nonliving positions us as one ecology, in the Space In Between our differences. This foundational statement underpins the concepts of design for this and future projects.

2. Reciprocal and interdependent relationships with all, in our one ecology are crucial for sustainability: Relationships are foundational for creating experiences. Finding a space of connection creates opportunities for intimacy. Intimate relationships engender knowledge pertaining to needs and emotions for responsive, nourishing and sustainable design. This learning was crucial to envisage responsive programs for all stakeholders, in terms of materiality, energy solutions, agency and placemaking. Extending the project and future practice beyond human centred design, forges Country considered and authentic design opportunities, in line with The United Nations Sustainable Goals 2022.

L E A R N I N G S, U N L E A R N I N G S + A F F I R M A T I O N S O F R E S E A R C H

3. Experiences can reimagine narratives:

Experiences create memories lived and imagined , which form identity. Through relationships, experiences of knowledge and nourishment, such as storytelling, sensory engagement, care and connection with Country, enable agency and voice for change. This learning was experienced in the spaces of engagement between community, particularly in the Weaving and Yarning sessions, whereby participants exchanged understandings, ideas and stories. This session highlighted the need for further education and experiences to develop a common language and understanding of the impacts of domestic violence and intergenerational trauma in the community of Mudgee. It also affirmed the potential impact of programs within the architectural response of Women Healing Women, Healing Country.

4. Codesign and authentic design is a slow and intimate process.

Throughout the project I was reminded to go slow, an unfamiliar phrase and process to anyone who knows me. What I came to learn through this evolution, was that all intimate relationships are formed in a slow space of trust and knowing. In Aboriginal culture slowness is conducive to considered and proactive care of Country. Through slowness and intimacy, individual needs are understood and healing is attained, without challenge or self advocacy. Our stories are not situated in the constraints of time and knowledge is a continuum. For my own personal experience, slowness sought permission to teach me new ways to communicate and to think , as a designer. This learning was crucial in considering the design process and impact for both victim survivors, the Aboriginal community and my knowledge to realise an architectural response.

5. Atmosphere embodies placemaking:

Throughout my engagement with the Aboriginal community, I came to know that connection to Country is a way of being, a way of knowing, is personal and directly related to place-making and contextualised identity. Country as a living entity, responds to and encircles all aspects of life, all matter is living and through sensory relationships, atmosphere is formed. Atmosphere is created in the Space In Between our past and present experiences, drawing on each, as organised and memorial spatial representations, with which we connect. My time on Country, through slow procession, became a collection of experiences visible, invisible, familiar/unfamiliar, tangible/intangible, each creating a dialogue or a performance through the evolving intimate relationship. During this process, I became receptive to a deeper perception and understanding of Munna Reserve and opportunities for placemaking in the shared ecology.

6. Landscape should always be the anchor and central protagonist of design: From the onset of the project, I sought to establish design principles and concepts to drive the architectural response. Often in an architectural space we forge through processes alone, occasionally stepping away to seek feedback, as we move toward a deadline. But does such an approach mirror the reality of life? Every moment, between moments, engages with

matter. There is an exchange between each- standing on site, my feet touch the ground, I hear the wind and feel the sunlight on my skin. I am never alone when I am alone; landscape is always with me . As I move through Country, Country moves through me. As architects we must always acknowledge landscape as the central protagonist of design. This relationship will honour the relationship of all other stakeholders. For without landscape , we have no existence. This learning foregrounded decisions in the architectural response related to sustainable practices and regeneration for the common good of all.

7.

Slow design is responsive and sustainable:

Having already established that slow design embodies intimate relationships, this learning extends through to opportunities created in the slow spaces of possibility addressed within the thesis. If slow design espouses intimacy, then intimacy affords a deep awareness of other. This knowing creates a responsive shift to need, which is informed and therefore an invitation to achieving sustainable practices, with all in our ecology. Throughout the design process, this shift to a slow approach allowed me to reflect deeply on the collated data ensuring the developing architectural response was authentic. This process was realised through the journey maps and documentary drawings, as imagined experiences. Similarly, the codesign process provided invaluable feedback, through a critical and relational lens. In this slow space of collaboration, design elements were adjusted to represent the community needs and enhanced stewardship of time and resource management.

HUMAN AND NON HUMAN RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS

In establishing an authentic approach to knowledge sharing and the healing of women, children, Country and community, an analysis of the non human and human stakeholders across Country and the interconnectedness of their relationships, was essential to ensure that the landscape as a protagonist and central stakeholder, anchored all species with and within the ecosystem.

Although time is not linear, categorised and ordered, a linear representation of the connections between non humans and humans has been developed in order to understand the reciprocal relationships of each stakeholder group, as well as their roles, aims and needs within the landscape. All stakeholder groups are interconnected, dependent and founded upon each others roles, aims and needs.

The analysis of various stakeholders and anticipating the potential interrelationships that should be fostered, including knowledge building, healing, research, art and exhibition, the notions of reciprocity and healing were explored to address the needs of the community by offering a women’s housing community, women’s wellness and knowledge hub and a creative exchange; a communal asset controlled by the stakeholders for the mutual benefits of individuals, groups and the ecosystem for human and non human species.

THE LANDSCAPE AS THE PROTAGONIST

unification tangible and intangible respect Needs Aims world view lore knowledge

As a result of the research undertaken, inclusive of rigorous site analysis, Indigenous histories and cultures, environmental understandings and relational engagement of human and non-human species, the landscape as a protagonist poses Country as a living and breathing entity. It must be respected, honoured and identified as the main stakeholder when designing and engaging on Country. In order to for Women healing Women Healing Country, to genuinely honour and engage with the Country in which it is situated, listening deeply and responding respectfully to the landscape has grounded this project through the curation of fragmented knowledge.

recycle regenerate control flexible education,

sunlight,

break up hard soil recycle organic material regenerate soil for seed growth

spaces, refuge, nocturnal, space to dig sunlight, shelter, diverse landscape

borrows, hollow logs, space to roam, refuge dense vegetation, grassy wood lands, shade

improve soil health keep carbon in the soil influence plant growth pollinate (day) control pests oxygenate air

canopies, shelter, diverse landscape, nesting diverse flora, sunlight, water

DEERS INSECTS AMPHIBIANS

scrub, woodlands, space to roam, shade access to water, high water quality, shelter

maintain ground layer weed and grass control

control rodent populations pollinate control grass and weed growth pollinate + decompose nutrients indicate water quality control insect populations increase water quality

VICTIM SURVIVOURS YOUTH

educate revitalise culture heal grow learn and educate

SERVICE PROVIDERS

flexible spaces, autonomy safety, relationships, support, voice variety of spaces, security, privacy

ARTISTS + RESEARCHERS

education, connection, relationship exhibition space, workshop, lab

COMMUNITY education, collaboration serve provide support

to learn to build knowledge maintain ground layer weed and grass control support serve guide art/exhibition research educate, regenerate

LANDCARE

support services, education land, flora

C O N C E P T S T A T E M E N T

Intimate & Responsive Placemaking, Through Reciprocal Relationships & Experiences of Knowledge and Nourishment

The overarching principles to guide this project are identified within the conceptual statement.

P R I N C I P L E S

The framework of principles were generated from the relationships across the stakeholder engagement. Two classifications were established: First Nations and Trauma Informed. These support the Codesign principles previously outlined. A common thread of relationship, knowledge, connection, ecology and agency flows through each. These principles were further consolidated in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2022. Combined these principles inform the project design.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2022

FIRST NATIONS

First Nations Leda culture of intimate knowing to guide design

TRAUMA INFORMED

Promote Culturethrough relationships and knowledge sharing

Centralised Servicesaccessible and inclusive

Connecting to Communitybelonging and engagement

Promote Biodiversityrespect for ecology through design process, construction and program

Connect People to Countryinclusive and intimate place-making

Safetylayered and passive security and place-making

Knowledge buildingagency for chance

Yindyamarraconsidered and respectful engagement

Let Country be what it wants to belandscape is a living entity and should be respected

Autonomy and Choicedecision making and opportunity

Voicestory telling and deep listening

A B A S K E T

An Architectural Response

The basket represents the design phase; a nexus of the fragments gathered, analysed and curated in the Womb and Nest phases. Each fragment is woven together as represented in the Learning Manifesto, to inform design; an ontological assemblage of what Place-Making can become to one and many.

I N I T I A L D E S I G N T H I N K I N G

C O N C E P T M O D E L S

Fifteen concept models were developed across the project timeline. These were based initially on the analysis of the site, including organic geometries and initial mappings. Clay was used as a representation of Country, on which we walk. Consisting of fragmented, curved and linear forms, the relationship of elements creates cohesion with a focus on engagement, relationship and functionality. Further development of the project conceptualisation was consolidated through the phases of Womb and Nest. The models progressed to reflect the principles of design as construed in the Concept Statement: intimacy, responsive place-making, reciprocal relationships and nourishment.

Model 1 (left) represents intimate relationships between all matter. The forms, symbolic of nests or baskets, represent fragmented stories and experiences we collect through memories and lived moments, conscious and unconscious. Each forming our identity. Stacking forms signify generations: nourishing through shared knowledge and kinship.

Model 2 (centre) representative of opportunities for procession, thresholds and passages. This model also acknowledges the relationship between matter, whilst signaling the value of individuality, to create agency, where placemaking is enabled through knowing self and community.

Model 3 (right) represents the value of balance and interdependence; the security of reciprocity and responsiveness to nourish our one ecology.

DOCUMENTING EXPERIENCES - CONSCIOUS REPRESENTATION

Oral story telling and journey maps from the nest phase, guided the initial design thinking with the data collated enabling me to walk with each of the women, to better understand their needs and experiences of space and placemaking.

“I want to feel connected to my country, to the land and to the sky. My kids love to be outside, I would love for there to be a space where I can see them at all times.” Participant 7

“...spaces to feel peaceful, safe and have lots of natural light. Direct access to the outdoors..” Participant 4

The iterative responses (on trace) focus on reciprocity between matter, spaces (inside and outside), and experiences (visual, haptic and aural) to create an atmosphere of engagement.

A N I T E R A T I V E P R O C E S S: C A P T U R I N G M O M E N T S

Framed window- perspective

Basins- perspective

Welcome to Country- perspective

Outdoor recreation- perspective

Framed window- plan

Basins- plan

Welcome to Country- plan

Outdoor recreation- plan

As a further response, the iterative drawings (documentary) were then developed to represent architectural moments, which provided experiences of security, agency, and nourishment; common voiced needs of each participant.

Basins Welcome to Country Outdoor recreation

Bathroom Framed window

T H E P R O J E C T A T T H I S P O I N T: T H E A S S E M B L A G E O F F R A G M E N T S

S C H E M A

The schema creates relational engagement, connection and nourishment through its composition of design elements part to whole, existing to new, each woven together in this dynamic form.

Across the site there are four architecturally built programs:

1. Women’s Community + Housing

2. A Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub 3. A Community Exchange 4. Administration Hub

The positioning of the schema allows Country to be what it wants to be, with programs being initiated in the open spaces of the site, with reduced impact on ecology.

Each program functions independently and collectively, embodying healing as an evolving ambition created in private, semi private and public spaces. All are responsive to the immediate needs of stakeholders, humans and non human, by creating contextualised placemaking through adaptive function, atmosphere, design elements and relational experiences. Engagement and connectedness is developed as women begin to process across and between the programs.

Circular, organic forms represent the emotive experience of security, community, continuous knowledge building, and an Aboriginal worldview that time is not linear. As healing is organic and is not time bound, the western view of linear processes is challenged in this design. The curved form of the program brings together the end points of a line, to create inclusivity and timelessness.

Cohesion and conversation between programs moves beyond form, to the blurring of lines between inside and outside spaces. Country is invited in through design and construction elements.

Relationships are created across the programs through sustainable energy practices; solar harvesting glass, passive design, water harvesting and eco toilets. Materiality is also key in building interrelatedness across the site. Natural resources of recycled timber, rammed earth and mycelium bricks are foundational and responsive to the core principle of giving back to Country and Aboriginal knowledge of using resources that are available within Country- a circular economy harvested and fabricated on site. Their properties as outlined

in the research (page 59-66)support a low embodied energy and carbon footprint through the production to end of life.

These four programs are bridged by the Space In Between- a processional space of journeying, wayfinding and fragmented moments of refuge and prospect, to be with and within Country, a slow space of healing.

The narrative of procession across the site will journey through the lens of stakeholders, human (Tia-Participant 7 and her children) and non human (fauna). Each moment, converging to create an atmosphere of intimate and responsive Place Making- opportunities for refuge and prospect, knowledge, nourishment and healing.

Axonometric: Women’s Community + Housing

Axonometric: Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub, Community Exchange, Administration Hub

W O M E N’ S H O U S I N G C O M M U N I T Y

W O M E N’ S H O U S I N G C O M M U N I T Y

As established, leaving a trauma based environment is a major decision for women, with diverse life altering impacts. It is a courageous decision, sometimes planned for months in advance and other times made within a moment. Leaving with children is more complex. Many women leave everything behind. Arriving at a community like Munna comes with great uncertainty, anxiety and is embedded in the moment of now, as the space of next is one of unknowing.

The ambitions of this program are to provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive space, respectful of voice and story and responsive to immediate needs of nourishment, knowledge and connectedness. It facilitates identity, relationship and autonomy.

Nestled between the natural tree lines, traversing the spaces of openness the structure is embedded in form and materiality, one with the landscape. The dissection of circular forms creates curved arms which are outstretched and confidently envelop the common spaces and housing; security is established.

The entrance through the curvilinear form, welcomes Tia and her children. Staff at the facility are aware of Tia’s arrival, through layered security. Outside, in the space in between arriving and entering, a semi-private seated area provides for safety and a moment of contemplation. Dappled light brings warmth amongst glimpses of Country.

Tia’s children are able to sit with her, play at her feet or venture not too far away, always within her sight through the eyes of the brick arms. When she is ready, Tia and her children enter the foyer area. A water channel runs through the foyer; a motif representing the shadow waters of the site; water that is unseen. It also conceives an atmosphere of nourishment and cleansing.

The foyer provides circulation between the exteriority and interiority of the site. A transitional space for gathering with private amenities for meeting and sharing story, places for voice and support from centralised services or simply refuge and rest.

Within the foyer, windows and glass doors frame views and thresholds to the spaces and housing within the community:

- A welcoming site and fire promotes culture and relationship

- The dry river bed connects community through play and provides shelter for non human stakeholders.

Reciprocity and biodiversity; connecting Country.

The

The foyer, Welcome to Country and dry riverbed beyond

Women’s Community + Housing Plan

Tia’s children are drawn to the outdoor spaces, but prefer to watch from a distance, on the shaded veranda, while Tia accesses a community pantry to gather food supplies and personal items for herself and children; autonomy is central to healing.

In the evening, Tia gathers her youngest children for a bath. Warm, harvested water trickles gently on their bare skin. Through the glass ceiling Tia watches the moon, watching her. Sky, water and land are one here through design, materiality and function-relational experiences; one ecology. Housing within the community responds to the need of diverse family compositions, providing varying spaces to accommodate all. Inclusive design is facilitated through mirrored compositions across all housing typologies.

The housing provides security and relational experiences through visual and aural engagement with Country and community across the private, semi private and public spaces For Tia this is experienced when reading a book by the corner window, venturing to the semi private courtyard and immersing herself in bird songs and caring for community gardens.

These moments have seen Tia engage in conversations and forge some friendships. Her healing is responsive to her experiences and the support within.

A verandah

Window seat and living space Bathroom

The community kitchen space brings community together. Tia can hear and see their presence and follows her children, as they balance on rocks and run amongst the native grasses. This natural bio-corridor, converses with Country beyond the program and funnels Tia through to the communal space. This southern side of the program provides a nexus point between the interiority and exteriority of the site, mimicking the northern entrance. Here the lines are blurred through a community kitchen and sleeping space, which draws southerly winds on hot summer evenings, through the large timber pivoting timber doors.

The atmosphere is vibrant, it is of storytelling and knowledge sharing- women healing women in their common space. This agency creates curiosity and the allure of Country, to venture beyond, to the space in between.

T H E S P A C E I N B E T W E E N P R O G R A M

S

The Space In Between is a natural meandering bio-corridor that engages Tia through stillness and procession in and through the spaces, creating sentience through multi-sensory experiences and relationships with landscape, flora and fauna. This provides Tia a reminder that she is never alone in Country. The fragmented moments or markers, across the site and identified experiences with and within the space nourish and heal, without any architectural intervention.

In this Space In Between programs, Tia’s experiences are responsive to the moments she engages with the landscape, with Country: reflective spaces to read, natural clearings to engage sit with Country and talk with friends or counsellors, bird watching opportunities with her children, aural, haptic and visual engagements. Here Country is what it wants to be. Native and non-native flora and fauna coexist, fallen trees remain and provide refuge and prospect for non-human species. The Aboriginal community use the corridor to educate about culture and promote regeneration of flora and knowledge of fauna.

Healing is transformative in this slow space of procession, through seasons of climate and wellbeing. When Tia is ready the Space In Between bridges her journey from her personal space of placemaking to community based programs and spaces within the Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub and The Community Hub Exchange.

Processional long section. Moments of healing without architectural intervention

S P A C E I N B E T W E E N

Drawing on the knowledge of the Mowgee peoples, healing and regeneration in The Space In Between, is a transformative opportunity between landscape, flora, fauna and people. Working on and with Country creates connectedness through care for soil, planting and cool burning.

Each area across the site uses intimate knowledge of species and seasonal impacts for growth and ecological sustainability.

I M A G I N E D + I N F O R M E D R E G E N E R A T I O N IN T H E

White Box Grassy Woodlands

Wetlands Cypress Forest

W O M E N’ S W E L L N E S S +

K N

O W L E D G E H U B, C O M M U N I T Y E X C H A N G E + A D M I N I S T R A T I O N

These adjacent spaces initiate a continuance of healing across the programs, through responsive function and reciprocity. Each of the programs is orientated on a line of axis to the ‘keepsite’ of the yarning circle. All draw on the educational value of knowledge sharing of the local Aboriginal community, through yarning circles, performance spaces, skill building, promotion of culture and immersion in Country.

There is a direct line of sight between the programs, through strategically placed and considered forms. The consistent geometry and materiality creates a conversation between each:

Circular forms gather and nourish, whilst the juxtaposing linear forms reach out to those approaching. High glazing diffuses light within and verandah spaces provide flexible transitional moments for gathering between indoor and outdoor or viewing platforms for workshop based activities.

W O M E N’ S W E L L N E S S + K N O W L E D G E H U B, C O M M U N I T Y E X C H A N G E + A D M I N I S T R A T I O N

W O M E N’ S W E L L N E S S +

K N O W L E D G E H U B

The ambitions of the The Women’s Wellness Centre + Knowledge Hub emerge from relationshipsconnecting to community and Country, knowledge building, promotion of culture, biodiversity and agency. It is a transitional, collaborative space of semi private and semi public configurations.

Design elements such as the external vertical shutters, provide refuge and privacy when closed and prospect beyond, through framing views, wildlife engagement and natural light when open. Each structure has direct connections to sky, earth and water through portals, vistas, water harvesting and rainchains, which provide nourishment for flora and fauna. Tia engages with non human stakeholders as their journeys converge through architectural and natural fragmented moments. The internal and external spaces are adaptive and multi functional. Operable doors and windows invite Country in and participants outside.

Here, Tia can gather with other women to engage in fitness and mindfulness programs, make, create, learn new skills such as weaving, bush regeneration, seed collection, bush medicine, fencing and brick making or engage with industry based experts to learn about financial literacy, workplace etiquette, and transformative skills for agency and transition to the broader community. The space also provides a variety of cooking amenities for classes and social gatherings. An outdoor fire in the courtyard, creates gathering and engagement, alongside outdoor cooking opportunities. Open basin areas, positioned outward, provide vistas to Country.

Plan (left to right): Administration Hub, Community Exchange and Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub

Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub looking back to the Community Exchange

Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub basin looking out onto Country

Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub

D E S I G N I N G F O R N O N H U M A N S T A K E H O L D E R S

Non human stakeholders can find refuge and prospect across these programs:

1. Floors are elevated to promote plant growth underneath, creating shelter spaces and food sources for native fauna and draws the ecology to the building envelope.

2.The roof structure facilitates reciprocal relationships of humans and non-human species, through shelter and temporal habitats, specifically for birds and possums.

3. Cavity spaces have been created in the rammed earth walls to provide shelter for burrowing species.

4. Rainchains and water channels have been incorporated in the landscape for water collection points.

5. Cutaways in existing fence lines have been maintained to allow animals safe access to Country, beyond the site.

6. Regeneration and care for Country by the women, nurtures habitats.

7.Allowing Country to be what it wants to be provides responsive natural shelters across the site.

Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub with cavity burrowing spaces and cohabitable roof structure

C O M M U N I T Y E X C H A N G E

The Community Exchange facilitates exchanges of ideas, knowledge and resources. It comprises four main spaces -a public gallery, (the form enlisting curiosity upon arriving at the site), a curator space, maker space, common space which may be used by school groups, artists in residence, music workshops, childcare and environmental groups. The responsiveness of these programs promotes Aboriginal culture and traditions of spaces for both mens’ and womens’ business.

Operable doors and windows create cross ventilation and spill out spaces to the verandahs. This design element espouses responsiveness to changing seasons and climates. The spaces are connected via passages which provide moments to engage with others or the landscape, through visual and aural experiences. These spaces engage the broader community providing opportunities to develop relationships which advocate for community healing. The steps outside the gallery are framed to face the Welcome Tree and provide seating for views across the site.

For Tia, this space may present an opportunity to come full circle and share her learning with others or to advocate the space to the community- her journey a catalyst for healing in the community spaces beyond Munna Reserve.

Community Exchange: The corridor From Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub to Community Exchange Community Exchange: basin

Community Exchange from pathway Community Exchange: the corridor

Community Exchange: gallery to ceremonial Apple Tree Existing yarning circle keepsite and Community Exchange

Section (left to right) Community Exchange and Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub

Community Exchange: multipurpose space

Community Exchange: workshop space

Community Exchange: gallery

From Administration to Community Exchange and Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub

A D M I N I S T R A T I O N H U B

With an overarching view across the programs, the Administration Hub is placemaking for the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council. It anchors the programs through a direct line of sight and sits cradled within a treeline of Country. The program enlists office spaces for committee members, visiting researchers and educators. Gathering is facilitated in the outdoor spaces, Privacy created through the building envelope.

From entry pathway to Community Exchange and Administration

N E W D E S I G N C O N S I D E R A T I O N S

Housing extending beyond security wall

As seen in the plans and visualisations, the housing is embedded to extend beyond the external walls of the community. This consideration enhances the relationship with Country, across the transitional spaces of the site and provides a passive level of security, with views beyond the program.

Extension of the dry river bed through and beyond the program exteriority provides a physical connection with the site beyond and through small form spacings in the walls, shows further consideration for journeying by fauna.

Developed plan: Women’s Community + Housing

Internal bedroom

Ariel of developed Women’s Community + Housing

W E A V I N G + Y A R N I N G

In collaboration with Aleisha Lonsdale (MLALC and Arts Out West), we ran a Weaving and Yarning session at the Mudgee Arts Precinct, to gather insight from women in the community, regarding the struggles encountered living regionally. The session was open to all and welcomed a diverse group of women to gather, weave and yarn over their experiences, stories and struggles.

Most of the women did not know one another at all or well, however between the laughter, silence and murmurs, they began to open up about their experiences. Amongst the group there were many similarities in stories and these became points in which people bounced to and from, using the Space In Between as a place of familiarity and security.

Discussion around access to services in the area became politically charged from the onset. All of the women agreed that access to services in Mudgee, for women and children are dire, especially the housing crisis. There is extremely limited social housing within the area and previous lobbying to see an increase in the typology has been unsuccessful. “The situation is only going to get worst when they (governments/councils) are not investing in it (services).” - Weaving and Yarning participant.

“...in a particular community like Mudgee, if we support people to stay, then they go on to contribute in whatever way they do, wherever their strengths lie.”Weaving and Yarning participant.

More often than not, the conversation in regional communities regarding social housing is met with excessive financial bureaucracy. What many governing bodies fail to understand is that supporting individuals and families in times of need, there is long term economic and social gain; unfortunately, financial profit is where the priorities lie for many of those in power.

When speaking of the project, the Women’s Community + Housing, Women’s Wellness + Knowledge Hub and the Community Exchange, the women from the group were interested, invested and supportive of the principles and concepts. “If this place could become a real place, it would do this community wonders.” - Weaving and Yarning participant.

“Once you are able to take yourself to that place, you are doing a lot. It is a first step.”- Weaving and Yarning participant.

All Weaving and Yarning images captured by Ambercreative

F R O M N O W T O N E X T

This Studio Thesis is the final component of this project in the space of now, it will however endeavour to move forward, to the space of next, through guidance and reflection. Alongside the advocacy by Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council, Munna Reserve presents an authentic opportunity to initiate healing and change for women, the broader community of Mudgee and our ecology- nevertheless, there is still so much to learn. Continuing in the codesign space with community, will take priority in the immediate future to progress the work thus far.

Further investigation into plastic eating fungi unearthed in the Nest Phase, could redirect the focus on regeneration beyond the site and create opportunities for broader engagement with MidWestern Regional Council, academics and environmentalists. Throughout the project it has been evident that there is much misunderstanding and misinformation around the needs and vision of Indigenous communities to achieve voice, treaty and truth.

So, the work in this space will continue in a slow procession; fragments to an assemblage.

The most insightful learning for me has been understanding that process is the most impactful space of personal investment. For, it is within the procession of learning that intimate relationships are formed, with all matter. As an architect focusing on these intimate relationships of reciprocity, engenders placemaking and presents experiences of knowledge and nourishment, which are critical to healing and rewriting our narrative.

An extract from the poem, How to Make A Basket, included in the text of the same title, How to Make a Basket, by Jazz Money, Wiradjuri poet.

‘....Her basket is safety Everything worth holding in two hands Has a perfect basket to respond How to make a basket

First you must begin With the grasses

First you must tend the blades The sweet small shoots

First you must make healthy the soil Care for this place Tend with fire Carry the seeds

First you must make the land right First you must love your mother What you care for will care for you When you are ready You will understand How to make a basket’

My knowledge has been shaped through the relationships with the Wiradjuri Nation and the experiences of victim survivors

It continues to evolve

All relationships, knowledge and experiences interwoven. Together, We will make our basket.

One which will enfold nourishment to heal, in The Space In Between, now and next.

P R O J E C T D I G I T A L A R C H I V E

1 Isabella Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design: Rediscovering opportunities for ultimate design & Realigning Human Centred Design Through The Construct of the womb,” (Honours Diss., University of Sydney, 2021)

2 António Guterres (UN Secretary-General: 2021), “Global Crisis Response ‘Too Little, Too Late’, Secretary-General Tells General Assembly ‘Our Common Agenda’ Event, Warning of Instability, Climate Chaos,” Transcript of speech delivered at the General Assembly Our Common Agenda’ Event in New York, September 2021, Accessed September 27, 2021. https://www.un.org/ press/ en/2021/sgsm20891.doc.htm

3 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design.” 54.

4 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design”.

5 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 33.

6 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 23.

7 The Uluru Statement, https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/

8 As noted by Thomas Major, Finding the Heart of the Nation: The journey of the Uluru Statement towards Voice, Treaty and Truth (Melbourne: Hardie Grant Travel, 2019), “This aspiration has been recorded in numerous statements and petitions, such as the 1938 Day of Mourning, the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the 1988 Barunga Statement.” 3

9 An Indigenous reconciliation process meaning ‘to come together after conflict’.

10 The Howard Government: the weakening of Native Title through policy. The Abbot Government: reduced and cut financial support to Aboriginal services. Turnbull Government: Retreating support and empty promises

11 The United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022, July 2022, https://unstats.un.org/ sdgs/report/2022/

12 The United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022, 3

13 The United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 highlights the long term impact of COVID-19,due to reduced access to health support and interrupted education of students globally, alongside the impacts of climate change, extreme weather and conflict.

14 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 11

15 Harry Francis Mallgrave, From Object to Experience: The New Culture of Architectural Design, (Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018)

16 The United Nations statistics (Explainer: How gender inequality and climate change are interconnected- see reference 12) into family and domestic violence indicate that 736 million women worldwide (one in three) have experienced domestic violence in their lives.

17 “How does climate change impact women and girls?” Explainer: How gender inequality and climate change are interconnected, The United Nations, last modified February 28, 2022, https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/explainer/2022/02/explainerhow-gender-inequality-and-climate-change-are-interconnected

18 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design.”

19 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 36 20 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,

21 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 40

22 Kristin M. Myers and David Elad, “Biomechanics of the human uterus,” in WIREs System Biology and Medicine, Volume 9 Issue 5 (2017), https:// doi.org/10.1002/wsbm.1388

23 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 46

24 DNA- is a molecule that contains the biological instructions that make each of us unique. DNA is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction.

25 Genomic imprinting is when a gene is differentially expressed based on whether it has been inherited from the mother or from the father.

26 Epigenetics focuses on the inherited behaviours from generational environment on your genetic makeup.

27 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 66

28 Mallgrave, From Object to Experience: The New Culture of Architectural Design, “New Models of Perception,” 17

29 Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly, First Knowledges. Songlines: The Power and Promise, (Melbourne: Thames & Hudson: 2020)

30 Neale and Kelly, First Knowledges. Songlines: The Power and Promise, 3

31 Harris, “Then, now, next rediscovering future design,” 66

32 David Wang and Linda N. Groat, Architectural Research Methods: Second Edition, (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013)

33 The United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022

34 Government Architects New South Wales, “Designing with Country Paper,” December 2018, https://www.aidr.org.au/media/7760/designing-withcountry-discussion-paper.pdf

35 Project Digital Archive, Victim Survivor Interview, Participant 5, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/vicitm-survivourparticpant-5

36 Project Digital Archive, Survey Data, https://isabellaharris2851. wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

37 Project Digital Archive, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/adigital-archive--w/transripts

38 Project Digital Archive, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/adigital-archive--w

39 Anne Summers, “The Choice: Violence or Poverty. Domestic violence and its consequences in Australia today,” (University of Technology Sydney: 2022) https://doi.org/10.26195/3s1r-4977

40 Domestic Violence NSW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Steering Committee, Australia, 2021, Submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women general discussion on the rights of Indigenous women and girls

41 Summers, “The Choice: Violence or Poverty. Domestic violence and its consequences in Australia today.”

42 Australian Institue of Health and Welfare, “Summary” in Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, (2018) xi (11), 10.25816/5ebcc144fa7e6

43 Project Digital Archive, Victim Survivor Interview, Participant 2, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/mudgeecommunity-health

44 Summers in The Choice: Violence or Poverty, “According to the 2016 Personal Safety Survey (PSS), an estimated 275,000 Australian women suffered physical and/or sexual violence from their current partner… But for around 15 per cent*2 of these women (12,000*), the reason for returning was that they had no money or nowhere else to go.3 Returning to their violent partner seemed a better choice than being homeless or trying to subsist in poverty.” 9-10

45 See bibliography and Project Digital Archive, https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w 46 Project Digital Archive, Victim Survivor Interview, Participant 3, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/health-professionals 47 Project Digital Archive, Local Community Survey Data, 2022 https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data 48 Project Digital Archive,Local Community Survey Data, 2022 https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data 49 Michael Salter, et al. “A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from violence, (Sydney: Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited (ANROWS): 2020) https://anrowsdev.wpenginepowered.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/05/Salter-RR-Complex-trauma.1.pdf

50 Salter, et al., A deep wound under my heart, 6 51 Tanya Taralga, All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism, (Victoria: Scribe Publications, 2020)

52 Taralga, “We were always here,” in All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism, 15 53 Salter, et al., A deep wound under my heart, 1 54 Taralga, “The third space,” in All Our Relations: Indigenous trauma in the shadow of colonialism, 99

55 Project Digital Archive, Local Community Survey Data, 2022 https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

56 Project Digital Archive, Housing Plus Interview, Participant 1, https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/housing-plus

57 Summers, “The Choice: Violence or Poverty. Domestic violence and its consequences in Australia today” 9-10

58

Project Digital Archive, Transcript Housing Plus Participant 1, 26th September 2022, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/ housing-plus

59

Project Digital Archive, Transcript Housing Plus Participant 1, 26th September 2022, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/ housing-plus

60 Hannah Robinson, “No-one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in regional, rural and remote NSW,” Community Legal Centres NSW, Accessed August 2022, https://www.clcnsw.org.au/no-one-will-hear-me-screamdomestic-violence-regional-rural-and-remote-nsw

61 Robinson, “No-one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in regional, rural and remote NSW.”

62 Robinson, “No-one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in

regional, rural and remote NSW.”

63 Robinson, “No-one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in regional, rural and remote NSW.”

64 NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, “Apprehended Violence Order Statistics NSW,” reference AVO_Statistics22Q2. https://www. bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_topics/Apprehended-violence-orders.aspx

65 NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, “Apprehended Violence Order Statistics NSW.”

66 NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, “Apprehended Violence Order Statistics NSW.”

67 Project Digital Archive,Interview with Health Professional-Participant 3, https://isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/healthprofessionals

68 Project Digital Archive, Transcript Participant 2, https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/mudgee-community-health

69 Project Digital Archive,Local Community Survey Data, 2022 https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

70 Project Digital Archive, Interview Participant 1https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/housing-plus

71 Alison Page and Paul Memmott, “Engineered Structures,” in First Knowledges: Design: Building on Country, (Thames and Hudson: 2021) 32

72 Working with Indigenous Australians, First Nations People, Aborig inal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities, “The Dreaming: World view and The Dreaming,” accessed August 20, 2022, http://www.work ingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/Culture_2_The_Dreaming.html

73 Simon Cropper et al., Cosmos, “Constellations: common global meanings”, Accessed 2 October 2022,

74 Cropper et al., Cosmos, “Constellations: common global meanings”

75 Conversations with Ted Kelly January 2020, Brewarrina Local Aboriginal Land Council and Aleisha Lonsdale August 2022, Mudgee Aboriginal Land Council

76 Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, “The Map of Indigenous Australia,” accessed October 23, 2022, https://aiatsis. gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia

77 Neale and Kelly, First Knowledges: Songlines: The Power and Promise, 147

78 “Defining Moments,” National Museum Australia, accessed 2 October, https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/defining-momentstimeline,

79

“Defining Moments,” NMA

80 Larry Brandy, Wiradjuri Country, (National Library of Australia Publishing: 2022)

81 Stephen Gapp, Gudyarra: The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance- The Bathurst War, (New South Publishing Australia;2021)

82 Gapp, Gudyarra: The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance, 82 83 Gapp, Gudyarra: The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance, 186-194 84 Gapp, Gudyarra: The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance, 86-194

85 The owner of the diary is unidentified due to the difficulty in deciphering the handwriting.

86 A degroatory term used during the time of the diary entry.

87 Great Blue Mountains Drive, “The Regions: Mudgee and Surrounds,” accessed September 20, 2022, https://www.greaterbluemountainsdrive.com.au/ regions/mudgee-and-surrounds

88 Great Blue Mountains Drive, “The Regions: Mudgee and Surrounds.”

89 Deborah Bird Rose, Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape Wilderness, (Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission,1996) https://www.ceosand.catholic.edu.au/catholicidentity/index.php/sustainability/ sustainability-and-aboriginal-education/91-nourishing-terrains/file

90 R. Mjadwesch, “Flora and Fauna Assessment for the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council,” (Australia: Mjadwesch Environmental Service Support, 2016)

91 Conversation with Aleisha Lonsdale, Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council, August 2022

92 A grass like plant, coarse in texture.

93 NSW Government, Department of Planning and Environment, “About the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme, accessed September 3, 2022, https:// www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/biodiversity-offsetsscheme/about-the-biodiversity-offsets-scheme

94 Jessica Mclean, Aleisha Lonsdale, Laura Hammersley, Emily O’Gorman, Fiona Miller, “Shadow waters: making Australian water cultures visible,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographer, Vol 43, Issue 4, 615629

95 “Empowered Communities: Empowered Peoples Design Report,”

(Canberra: Printstant, 2015) 978-0-9942155-2-9, https://www.niaa.gov.au/ sites/default/files/publications/empowered_communities_report.pdf

96 Australian Human Rights Commission, “Chapter 6: Indigenous Peoples and Water,” Native Title Report 2008, accessed September 30, 2022 https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/social_justice/nt_report/ ntreport08/pdf/chap6.pdf

97 Robinson, “No-one will hear me scream: Domestic Violence in regional, rural and remote NSW.”

98 Summers, “The Choice: Violence or Poverty” 99 Page and Memmot, First Knowledges, Design: Building on Country, 81 100 Page and Memmot, First Knowledges, Design: Building on Country, 77.

101 ArchDaily, “Hy-Fi, The Organic Mushroom-Brick Tower Opens At MoMA’s PS1 Courtyard,” accessed September 15, 2022, https://www.archdaily. com/521266/hy-fi-the-organic-mushroom-brick-tower-opens-at-moma-s-ps1courtyard

102 Michael Lim and Yun Shu, “The future is fungi,” Australian Geographic, last modified February 23, 2022. https://www.australiangeographic. com.au/topics/science-environment/2022/02/the-future-is-fungi/ 103 Diane Toomey, “Exploring How and Why Trees ‘Talk’ to Each Other,” Yale Environment 360, last modified September 1, 2016, https://e360.yale.edu/ features/exploring_how_and_why_trees_talk_to_each_other 104 Critical Concrete, “Building with Mushrooms,” last modified April 23, 2018, https://criticalconcrete.com/building-with-mushrooms/ 105 Ilvy Bonnefin, “Emerging Materials: Mycelium Brick,” Certified Energy, last modified February 1, 2017, https://www.certifiedenergy.com.au/emergingmaterials/emerging-materials-mycelium-brick

106 Janet McGaw et al., “Tangled Tales of Mycelium and Architecture: Learning From Failure,” Frontiers in Built Environment, published May 27, 2022, doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2022.805292

107 Janet McGaw et al., “Tangled Tales of Mycelium and Architecture: Learning From Failure.”

108 Carly Nairn, “Mycoremediation brings the fungi to waste disposal and ecosystem restoration,”for Mongabay News and Inspiration from Nature’s Frontline, last modified 15 September 2021, https://news.mongabay. com/2021/09/mycoremediation-brings-the-fungi-to-waste-disposal-andecosystem-restoration/

109 Kayla Vasarhelyi, “Plastic Eating Mushrooms,” for University of Colorado Boulder, Environmental Center, Division of Student Affairs, last modified November 4, 2022. https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2021/11/04/plasticeating-mushrooms

110 Andrea D. Steffen, “This Edible Mushroom From The Amazon Thrives By Eating Plastic!” for Intelligent Living, last modified August 13, 2019. https:// www.intelligentliving.co/edible-mushroom-eating-plastic/

111 Andrea D. Steffen, “This Edible Mushroom From The Amazon Thrives By Eating Plastic!”

112 Researchers at Swinburne University Melbourne have been experimenting with mycelium as floating water purifiers and habitats for fauna. This idea could be transposed into the natural environment of Munna reserve to enhance urban habitats.

113 Constructed a rammed earth sample with local rammed earth construction company, Penney Construction

114 Onlee Construction, “Inspirational rammed earth,” Accessed October 4, 2022, https://olneerammedearth.com.au/about-rammedearth/#:~:text=Rammed%20earth%20walls%20are%20excellent,that%20 other%20materials%20can’t.

115 Rammed Earth Enterprises, “Thermal Properties,” Accessed October 4, 2022, https://www.rammedearthenterprises.com.au/thermalproperties/#:~:text=Rammed%20earth%20is%20a%20medium,in%20 temperature%20of%20the%20object.

116

Rammed Earth Enterprises, “Internal,” Accessed October 4, 2022, https://www.rammedearthenterprises.com.au/internal/ 117 Australian Government, “Your Home: Rammed Earth,” Accessed October 4, 2022, https://www.yourhome.gov.au/materials/rammedearth#:~:text=There%20are%20no%20flammable%20components,4%2Dhour%20 fire%20resistance%20rating.

118

Ubiquitous Energy, “Technology,” accessed August 2021, https:// ubiquitous.energy/ 119 Ubiquitous Energy, “Technology.”

120 Ubiquitous Energy, “Technology.” 121 Ubiquitous Energy, “Technology.”

122 Ornilux Bird Protection Glass, “The Future of Bird Friendly Glass is Clear,” accessed August 2021, http://www.ornilux.com/index.html

123 Ornilux Bird Protection Glass, “The Future of Bird Friendly Glass is Clear.”

124 Gene Technology Access Centre, “Spiderweb inspired bird-safe glass – In the news,” accessed August 2021, https://gtac.edu.au/spiderweb-glassin-the-news/#:~:text=Hans%2DWilly%20Ley%20from%20the,laced%20with%20 ultraviolet%2Dreflective%20patterns

125 Project Digital Archive, Survey Data, https://isabellaharris2851. wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

126 Project Digital Archive, Survey Data, https://isabellaharris2851. wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

127 Project Digital Archive, Survey Data, https://isabellaharris2851. wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/survey-data

128 Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do, (Carlton: Black Inc, 2019)

129 Hill, See What You Made Me Do, 82

130 Project Digital Archive, Interview Participant 1, https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/housing-plus

131 Project Digital Archive, Interview Participant 2, https:// isabellaharris2851.wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/mudgee-community-health

132 Project Digital Archive, MLALC notes, https://isabellaharris2851. wixsite.com/a-digital-archive--w/codesign-with-mlalc

133 Aleisha Lonsdale explained that the term ‘silent generation’, refers to generations after The Stolen Generation, who remained silent about their Aboriginal identity for fear of having their children taken, facing racism and marginalisation.

134 Songlines are a manifestation of synthesised generational knowledge

135 Neale and Kelly, First Knowledges, Songlines: The Power and Promise, 85

136 Neale and Kelly, First Knowledges, Songlines: The Power and Promise, 86-87

137 Neale and Kelly, First Knowledges, Songlines: The Power and Promise, 87

138 Fuller, Norris, and Trudgett, The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi People and Their Neighbours, 2013

139 Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli, First Knowledges, Astronomy, Sky Country, (Thames and Hudson , 2022.) 40

140 Noon and De Napoli, First Knowledges, Astronomy, Sky Country, 40

141 Mudrooroo, Us Mob: History, Culture, Struggle-An Introduction to Indigneous Australia, (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1995)

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