Georgia Birks: Can you tell me a bit about how you ended up working together?
Troy Casey: Coincidence, actually! We’re currently collaborating on a number of projects, but we first crossed paths when Blaklash was engaged by an architectural practice to come on board as the Indigenous design or community consultant. I believe Kieran was on another submission for the same project and got poached.
Kieran Wong: Yes, The Fulcrum Agency was brought in on another team on that same project. We were all shortlisted and interviewed, and the client thought there would be a benefit in partnering us [Blaklash and The Fulcrum Agency]. So, it was an arranged marriage!
TC: Complementary skillsets, right? At Blaklash Creative, we’re not trained architects, but we understand the public realm and the translation from the community to the clients. And The Fulcrum Agency do a similar thing but have some trained architects, which is so helpful when it comes to the kinds of language barriers that we face when we’re talking to architects. We’re collaborating on a bunch of projects now – so the arranged marriage worked.
GB: Can you describe the roles and relationships between the designer, the First Nations consultants and the Traditional Custodians in the process of collaboration?
TC: There’s a certain level of trust in a relationship that needs to be built for there to be a genuine engagement and outcome. Being mob and going in and speaking to mob … there’s a sense of connection straight away, which allows for a more robust conversation quicker. And we all know that people want stuff done quickly, right? So, in some instances – not all instances – that’s beneficial.
I guess the other thing is being able to understand cultural sensitivities and translate stories in a manner that’s culturally appropriate, and understanding how you can pick conceptual threads out of stories that aren’t about that particular Dreaming story, or that particular story connected to a site – it’s a more holistic view around Indigenous knowledges and systems and ways of telling Aboriginal narratives that can then be responded to by architectural firms and practices.
Chris Bassi: I’ve found that it means a lot for mob to talk to mob. Talking to Elders and Traditional
