The Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne – 23rd February 2023
Our first on-country day had a fabulous turnout of 25 Centre members and 4 HDR students. We began with a walk on Country Indigenous Heritage Walk with welcoming and inspirational guides Lenka Vanderboom and Christopher Jakobi -‘Jakobi’ and learned about their
process of decolonising the RBG with its colonial origins. We convened for a short time in the colonial space that is Mueller Hall, for more sharing, listening, and speaking of ideas. We are grateful to our NIKIERII and Centre colleagues Al Fricker and Jessamy Gleeson for bearing some of the cultural load on the day as we took on the challenges of decolonising our practices and research. Al shared some of his recent work in decolonising school libraries, also reported recently in the media. Gen Blades joined via
Zoom from Queensland to share her research on walking pedagogy. In the afternoon, we worked outdoors and drew upon arts-based approaches to create responses to our Centre imperatives. Some of the creations made on the day, along with readings and the task description, can be seen in our Artful Actions gallery.
It was a joy for us to join with members (virtually and in person) on a beautiful day, most fully embodied and some who could not attend in person walking with us via Zoom. The On Country meeting was important work towards our aim of building a connected research community committed to doing research differently.