Wingara’ba’miya, Sydney, NSW

How might architectural practices work with Indigenous knowledge and people to reconnect to Country in urban landscapes?

Wingara’ba’miya was a studio about exploring the relationship between architectural and place-making practice and Indigenous knowledges of Country in urban Sydney. In Australia, architecture has been a mechanism for a white European, predominantly male, colonisation that has systematically erased local Aboriginality. Early colonial policies forced Indigenous peoples to relocate beyond urban areas, creating an illusion of ‘empty landscapes’ to support the Bourke Proclamation terra nullius – the artifice of a land belonging to nobody. This remains the context for contemporary architectural practice in Sydney in 2019.

Wingara’ba’miya is a Sydney D’harawal language word that has layered meanings. It addresses a group of people to say “You will understand” but also means “You will foretell or imagine.” It is used as a provocation to the students, as they foretell or imagine future city spaces and relationships with Indigenous community on Country in Sydney. We foretell an alternative spatial future, one in which architects challenge practices of erasure and marginalisation. By encountering global Indigenous thinking and ‘right of reply’ to colonial archives, our architectural methodologies are challenged to evolve.

This studio was an exercise in spatially engaging specific local Aboriginal knowledges and ways of knowing within architectural thinking to question what a decolonised practice of architecture could become… through three performative acts. The process was Indigenous-led with outcomes benefitting both students and Indigenous community.