Ancient culture, new design

This article first appeared in Habitus #47, March 2020

Balarinji co-founders Ros and John Moriarty (left and centre) with son Tim Balarinji.
Photography by David Wheeler.

A desire to share Indigenous heritage with a new generation saw the emergence of Balarinji, a design agency that collaborates on projects across Australia. Rachael Bernstone met co-founder Ros Moriarty.

If you’ve seen the Qantas jumbo jets painted with Aboriginal art – there have been five of them flying international skies over the past 25 years – you’ve come into contact with the work of Balarinji, a multi-disciplinary, Aboriginal-owned design agency based in Sydney.

The agency was co-founded by Ros and John Moriarty, and she spoke at the #collectiveagency2019 conference in Melbourne.

Inspired by her presentation, I interviewed Ros for Habitus Magazine. She’s pictured here with husband John and son Tim, who also works at Balarinji.

Ros hopes that Australian architects and designers will engage more holistically with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on projects across the country; she would like to see local Indigenous stories incorporated into all new projects.

“At Balarinji, we’ve gone beyond engagement and consultation, to really collaborating deeply with the Aboriginal community,” she said. “These stories are foundational – and fundamental – to our identity, to who we are as Australians.”

You can read the full article here.