Waterways Country Workshop Series and Symposium

Catchment Studio’s mission to transform our community’s understandings of and connections with urban waterways. We begin from the conviction that in order to live better with water, as a society, we need to learn to better hear, see, feel, respect and respond to Country telling us its stories about what it needs and how it supports our own wellbeing. To facilitate this learning, we gather people on Country for interactive and collaborative conversations that incorporate Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and arts-based creativity.First Nations knowledge is paramount and foundational. Ngunnawal Custodians live an ancient, continuing, and evolving practice of caring for waterways as places of material, ecological, cultural and spiritual significance. Aboriginal design practices and management frameworks ensure long-term, sustainable human relationships with waterways, tuned to working with the ebbs and flows of Australian river systems and mediated by significant cultural relationships with riparian species. Reflecting this understanding, Catchment Studio programs are centred on working with Traditional Custodians to (as appropriate) share knowledge of and connect people with Country.