Ros Moriarty - Shining The Light on Aboriginal Culture
“Culture is a powerful determinant of identity for all Australians. We’re activating the Indigenous voice in new ways”
Ros Moriarty is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Balarinji and the Moriarty Foundation. She is a business owner, social investor and author. In 2018 Ros was appointed the Independent Chair of the FFA Women’s Football Council. She is an inductee of both the Australian Design Institute Hall of Fame and the Australian Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame.
Her Board appointments have included Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, the National Gallery of Australia, Australian Major Events SA and the Australian Academy of Design. In 2015 Ros was named Winner Business Enterprise in the 2015 Financial Review/Westpac Australian 100 Women of Influence Awards.
According to Ros, who for 35 years has helped give a voice to Australia’s largely invisible Indigenous narrative.
“It’s a sad fact that the Aboriginal narrative is missing from our public spaces, urban developments and buildings. It’s a historical anomaly that its never been seen as important. yet, it’s fundamental and foundational to Australia’s identity”
Ros, along with her husband, Yanyuwa man, John Moriarty, is changing the face of Australian design by integrating Aboriginal artwork into spaces like public art, urban regeneration and infrastructure. Her journey begins with the story of her partner who, in the 1930s was born to a Yanyuwa mother and Irish father in Borroloola in the remote Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory.
At only 4 years-of-age John, with skin paler than his mother’s, was taken as part of the now infamous assimilationist policies of the Stolen Generations - a government strategy to eradicate Aboriginality. After 10 years, John would find his mother briefly in Alice Springs, only to be immediately separated once more due to them both being Wards of the State. It was another 15 years before John would have the wherewithal to return to the Gulf and be reunited with family, culture and country.
“In 1983 we established Balarinji in an environment vastly different from now. Opportunities for Aboriginal design in the public sphere were non-existent”
Balarinji is the skin name of our two sons. Skin names denote a classificatory system that orientates people to land and relationships – to belonging. Along with our daughter, we are an Indigenous Australian family. The Indigenous narrative is understandably core to our family and our business. We are an Indigenous Australian-owned design agency driven by social change. But why does this matter to other Australians?
Ask Qantas.
In 1993 I woke up at 2am with the idea of painting a Qantas jumbo jet. We deeply wanted Indigenous story to matter to one of Australia’s biggest brands on the global stage. It was not essentially about an aircraft flying high with our work. It was a restorative statement by an icon of the nation that had taken John from his mother.
It was both a personal and a public way to challenge that abhorrent intention of cultural cleansing. It became a powerful acknowledgement of Australian identity, and four more Balarinji art aircraft followed, the most recent in 2018.
This initiative was a seminal moment. When it comes to design of major projects, such a moment has been missing. The Aboriginal narrative has never been seen as important.
There is a shift happening.
Organisations are beginning to see the value of including culture in the social, environmental and economic triple bottom line. There is a greater understanding that culture is a powerful determinant of success – whether it’s the culture of the social groups we belong to, the teams we want to work in, or the collective beliefs we hold as a society.
Through Balarinji we are working with some of Australia’s leading organisations to showcase local and meaningful Aboriginal narratives. Whether this is activating Aboriginal design and artworks for railway stations, installing sculptural pieces in parklands or painting 747s with eye-catching artworks, we have moved the goalposts on the traditional consultation engagement methodology to share cultural value.
We are activating voice in completely new ways, using deeply collaborative methodologies to bring local Aboriginal communities together to decide what stories should be told and how.
For instance, Balarinji collaborated with the Redfern Aboriginal community to art direct and facilitate public art themes and concepts for the recently opened Redfern Station improvement works.
As well as being Gadigal Country, Redfern is considered the epicentre of Aboriginal urban culture in Australia today. It is often referred to as an Urban Homeland. It was important to ensure the Aboriginal community had the opportunity to depict the diverse cultural and contemporary stories that best represent them.
The result was the incorporation of Redfern’s rich Aboriginal culture into public art and interpretive elements at the station. Balarinji approached the project by workshopping, commissioning and supporting the curation of artworks by community-endorsed local artists telling stories specific to Redfern.
This is far removed from just hanging a token piece of Aboriginal art on a wall that is unrelated to place. Linking design and public art directly to a site has a deeper meaning than geographical accuracy. Aboriginal people have a profound spiritual connection to land and place - to Country. Linking local Aboriginal stories to public art and embedding them into the built environment, makes the idea of Country more accessible to the general public, aiding reconciliation, understanding and cultural identity for all Australians.
It’s taken us 36 years at Balarinji to arrive at this point, and there is more work to be done to give greater visibility to the Aboriginal narrative. We will continue to work with organisations to activate cultural design principles and one design element and artwork at a time, we will continue to shine a light.
What are you doing to embrace and give greater visibility to the Aboriginal Narrative?
Get in contact with Ros and the team at Balarinji - follow them on Facebook, check out their work and contacts on their website, or connect with Ros on Twitter, Linked In or Facebook.