Join Steph Beck, Parul Jagdish, Professor Song and Professor Death from AIME to learn a design process based in Indigenous Systems Knowledge.

Indigenous Systems Knowledge is the systemic knowledge held by Indigenous communities throughout the world that can be used to help design healthier mainstream systems for all.

This course will step you through a practical approach that can be applied to the design of services, programs, policy, organisations and life.

Indigenous Systems Knowledge is not something you can acquire, but if you’re lucky to be invited in (and this here is an invitation), it is a process of coming back to right relationships - within yourself, with other humans around you, and with all the other species-kin we share our precious planet with.  

AIME collaborate with TACSI as Indigenous Systems Knowledge Partners of the National Futures Initiative.

Seven Circles of Design and Inquiry

Informed by AIME's 20 years of social innovation, living systems and ancestral knoweldges from the Australian continent and beyond.

  • 1: Death
    Death helps get us out of culture, releases us from competition and helps us orientate with everyone.

  • 2: Art
    Art and imagination help move energy, and people through creativity.

  • 3: Improv and Kolab
    Making and creating together helps build trust and understanding with others, through play.

  • 4: Unlikely Connections
    Making and creating together helps build trust and understanding with others, through play.

  • 5: Non-Human Knowledge
    Learning from Country and creatures can teach us how and what to design.

  • 6: Return to Water
    Connecting to water as a life-force helps us remember our relation to life.

  • 7: Tools
    Sharing resources freely for all to stimulate positive change and enable shared knowledge systems.

Your facilitators

Stephanie Beck

IMAGI-NATION Ko-Founder and {University} Vice Chancellor, AIME

Stephani Beck is a Wongatha Ngadju woman from Western Australia and the current Vice Chancellor of IMAGI-NATION {University}. Steph is currently playing a lead role in shepherding the IMAGI-NATION Platform, she is an artist and a custodian of knowledge who serves as a translator to the Professors, the systems change projects and toolmakers within the network. Steph’s core focus is exploring avenues to centre Indigenous Systems Thinking in all aspects of design, development and implementation through impact and storytelling.

Professor Song & Professor Death

AIME

Professor Song (left) is a frequent collaborator with Stephanie Beck, sharing wisdom on creativity and art making. Professor Death (right) is a frequent collaborator with Parul Jagdish to lead contemplations on death.

Parul Jagdish

IMAGI-NATION Ko-Founder and Head of Impact, AIME

Parul is a Gondi-Khatri man fashioned along the lines of Malala, Mandela & Gandhi. PJs life and work is rooted in the wisdom traditions of India, that acknowledge the unity & diversity of our world-family - humans & more-than-humans. His experience includes prestigious university scholarships, working with corporates, politicians, as a not-for-profit board director, making movies, co-founding social change movements and living in ashrams. At AIME he works around the world building partnerships, and a global systems-change Indigenous-led movement spanning 52+ countries creating a fairer world using imagination & mentoring.

"We want to put Indigenous Systems Knowledges at the front of the design queue, so we can all return to the right relations and unlock our pathways to the future."

Stephanie Beck and Parul Jagdish, AIME

Included in the group package:

  • Introductory conversation to support tailoring the workshop

  • 5hrs of relational learning with two facilitators and puppets (online or in person with additional travel costs)

  • Lifelong access to learning resources and frameworks for designing with Indigenous Systems Knoweldges, for your group via the TACSI Learning Hub including via the Learning Hub app

Join the webinar

Learn more about this course at the upcoming webinar

Pricing and booking

Contact our Learning Coordinator, at [email protected] to make your booking or to ask any questions.

Duration:
5 hours over 5 sessions or tailored to meet your needs.

Technology:
Online workshops hosted online via Zoom or Teams 
Learning materials accessible via web browser or app.

Pricing:
Contact our Learning Co-ordinator to discuss options to work with your budget.

Course curriculum

  1. Embassy: Coming into right relation

  2. Designing with Death: Embracing natural cycles

  3. Art and Imagination: Moving energy through creativity

  4. Improv and Kollaboration: Building trust through play

  5. Unlikely Connections: Finding wisdom beyond margins

  6. Non-Human Knowledge: Learning from Country and creatures

About this course

  • Now booking
  • Online delivery

What learners said

“This course made me understand design and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in a whole new way. It's a beautifully held journey that invites you to gently rewire your head, heart and hands, start from unlikely places, and play with huge concepts like death, art and imagination. I'll carry this experience forever.”

Tasman Munro, Senior Social Innovator, TACSI

“The process of unlearning and unknowing surfaced so many deeply held Western beliefs I’d never had the time, space, or support to challenge before. While it was disorienting at first, six months on I find the ideas we explored together keep resurfacing as more intuitive ways of tackling the big challenges we face. Going through this journey alongside the team not only shifted my perspective, it also brought us closer together.”

Jemima Taylor, Social Innovator Strategy

“This is an approach to design unlike any other I’ve experienced. If you are interested in Indigenous ways of working and thinking, this course will give you very practical approaches you can use in your work, or with your team. And amazingly Steph, PJ and the Professors have translated ancestral knowledges into very human magic that 100% translates to online learning”

Chris Vanstone, co-CEO TACSI