Jon Shinkfield at KTA | DOA Guest Lecture | Inside Practice

Join us at Kerstin Thompson Architects to hear from Jon Shinkfield discuss Theory and Practice: Knowing Why, Knowing How… and Knowing Where.

Australia has always been a place of knowing, deep knowing. But since colonisation we have been operating in a state of 'un'knowing. This talk, 'Theory and Practice', positions REALMstudios work in the context of knowing, where, through a framework of 'readings, research and realisation', site narratives are revealed, both tangible and intangible. They are uncovered by inverting convention, collaborating with Indigenous knowledge holders and prioritising the more-than-human. In this uncovering, in preference to a fixation on design solutions, there is an attention to 'un'design, to respond to conditions and challenges, informed by systems of place and purpose. Theory and Practice; knowing why, knowing how....and knowing where.
Jon Shinkfield is a Founding Director of REALMstudios, a practice with studios in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart and Perth. He is an Urban Design/Landscape Architectural practitioner and sessional teacher. At a personal level his practise has moved significantly over the past 10 years, where his design approach has become increasingly grounded in working with First Nations peoples, close observation, expanded knowledge and incremental moves; moving further and further from the ‘set piece’ of design to a place of embracing the agency of landscape and its transformative, regenerative capacity, from a groomed monocultural colonial aesthetic to one of biodiversity and richness, of decolonisation. His work has been and is recognised year on year through state and national awards, publications and guest lectures and he continues to contribute to the academy, the institute and to government.

Inside | Practice is the guest lecture series of the Department of Architecture at Monash University and brings together emerging and established practitioners, alternative studios and allied professionals to share diverse approaches to architectural practice today.

Image: Blind Creek, photograph Rory Gardiner