In their 1968 lecture “The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial”, social scientist Herbert Simon described designers as engaged in “courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” This definition allows us to sense how the development of design in settler colonies such as Australia and New Zealand has been part of the colonial project, overlaying preferences for European aesthetic and cultural values over First Nations communities, practices and sovereignties.

Against this colonial overlay, Indigenous designers have continually resisted attempts to classify and constrain their practices, producing expansive projects that open an ethical relation to Country and community. In this session, Tiriki Onus charts histories of resistance in Indigenous design in South East Australia, and a panel of contemporary First Nations practitioners reflect on the role of resistance in their own practices, and the role of self-determination in Indigenous design today.