Design as an act of (Blak) power

The Eyes of the Land and the Sea: Kamay Botany Bay National Park, Alison Page & Nik Lachajczak, 2020. Bronze sculpture.

Event details

When: 4.00pm, Thursday 13 November 2025 Where: Chau Chak Wing Auditorium, UTS Business School, Sydney, NSW, or online. Cost: Free & open to the public (registration required) Register: https://events.humanitix.com/2025-hancock-lecture-professor-alison-page

The Italian verb disegnare meaning to mark out, point out, devise, choose, designate, is said to be where the word design originates. While design is a universal human act, the processes behind how we make decisions cannot be separated from culture and its values. These choices have organised societies, devised laws, and built and destroyed empires in many different cultures for thousands of years. It is all design; the good and the bad.

For Aboriginal Australians, decisions have been made through a lens of The Dreaming, which is a worldview where humans are inseparable from nature. Science, law, art and cultural practice are holistically interwoven into a blueprint for an ecologically balanced way of life. This contrasts with the colonial-settler decision-making framework, which prioritises the perspective of the settlers and marginalises and displaces First Peoples. Its goal is to abrogate Country and replace the Indigenous worldview with that of the settlers.

As we grapple with some of the most challenging issues of our time; climate change, social conflict and an existential reckoning with Australia’s true history; the time for great decisions is now.  The key to how we design the future of Australia has its origins in 65,000 years of decision-making, which in contemporary terms is blakness – a reclamation of an evolving First Nation’s identity with Country at heart.

Great decisions are an act of power and can be transformational for people and Country. It is a generous cultural inheritance for all Australians where we can solve our wicked problems with Country-centred thinking, design our cities with Country as a driver and engage in cultural practices that reinforce our sense of belonging to place. A new Australian design built from a 65,000-year legacy.

About Professor Alison Page

Professor Alison Page is a descendant of the Dharawal and Yuin people and is an award-winning creative at the forefront of the contemporary Australian Aboriginal cultural movement. She is a leading force in the Australian design scene and has an extensive career spanning design, public art, exhibitions and urban design. She is the founder of the National Aboriginal Design Agency and Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance.

In 2015 she was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia Hall of Fame and in 2022 was awarded the Interior Design Excellence Awards Gold Medal. Alison was a panelist for eight years on the ABC television program The New Inventors, which showcased Australian innovation.

She is currently a Professor of Practice at Faculty of Design and Society, and a member of several cultural boards including the National Australia Day Council, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

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