Owen Café On Infusing Purpose Into Landscape Architecture To Counteract Oppressive Built Environments
Owen Café is a proud Whadjuk-Pindjarup person and an experienced landscape architect dedicated to social and ecological justice through design.
As the Principal Landscape Architect at Blaklash, Owen drives Country-centred thinking, amplifying cultural values within the public realm and creating meaningful connections to Country.
With a deep understanding of the intersections between culture and ecology, Owen challenges traditional notions of the ‘Indigenous aesthetic,’ fostering both tangible and intangible links between the built environment, Country, and cultural values.
Owen also works across universities such as QUT, UQ, WSU, and UoM, embedding Indigenised pedagogy and culture into classes and curriculum. Additionally, he contributes to advancing the profession through his involvement on state and national committees within AILA.
Owen discusses how empathetic, introspective changemakers will become key drivers of the business for good movement and why opening spaces for Aboriginal communities to voice their needs is crucial for unravelling intergenerational trauma and inequity.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Indio Myles] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what brought you to working in social enterprise and impact?
[Owen Café] - I grew up primarily on Gubbi Gubbi Country, the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. On reflection, I’ve realised I had a rough upbringing, but I didn't think it was at the time. When I was growing up, I was intermittently homeless. We were always on the brink, but so was everybody else I was associating with, so it was the norm for me.
When you're in a community of people struggling, it's all about coming together and helping each other, otherwise you just can't get through. It was just an inherent part of growing up for me, so as I've become an adult I’ve just always wanted to help. Help is a very broad term, but I wanted to help people, the environment and my community.
A big part of this help was through messaging and communication, so I worked as a photographer for quite some time. I wanted to essentially convince people that they're beautiful so we could all look at each other and connect better. But the photography industry is a weird one, I had rose-tinted glasses and then I eventually ended up encountering the sticky side of it.
I then started thinking about what else I could do. I’m into the built environment, public spaces and the [natural] environment, so I thought, "cool, I'll do architecture." However, I didn't get a score high enough to study that, so instead I started studying landscape architecture planning to do that for a year and then jump across to architecture.
I got two weeks into studying this when I realised that it’s my jam. I've now been doing it for a while, but it was hamstrung by some of the boundaries of traditional practice. Personally, I wasn't doing landscape architecture to be a landscape architect, for me it’s about how am I creating impact?
Landscape architecture just wasn't cutting the mustard for me, and that's when I by chance met all the Mob here at Blaklash. We all came together to create what Blaklash is now, and it's just about trying to help people.
As Principal Landscape Architect with Blaklash, can you share a bit more about this organisation and its activities as a social enterprise?
Blaklash is 100% Aboriginal owned and operated. We always struggle to coin exactly what it is, but a creative consultancy is my favourite description. We obviously have landscape architecture, but we also work in architecture, interior design, public art delivery, events, and art curation.
We basically come together and try our best in any way we can to amplify the voices and agency of our communities around the country. This is to try and break some of the intergenerational cycles of trauma and inequity we see in our communities all over the country.
For us, that impact is generally through the built environment; development and property are king in Australia. These are also the spaces and places people interact with the most. If that means Mob can see themselves in their communities, then that can change someone's whole life.
It could even be as simple as getting money into a community because of a development project and using that money to better create opportunities in that community, whether it's through education, upskilling, or allowing auntie to drop down from working five days a week so she can teach her young one’s language.
We're trying to help our communities wherever we can in whatever way we can, and the beauty of not being a traditional design firm is we don't adhere to the same frameworks and restrictions. We pretty much just say, "give us a go, we'll have a crack and create impact if we can.” Our whole motto is around asking, “are we doing good for Mob?”
What is landscape architecture and how are you connecting your work with the generation of sustainable impact?
Landscape architecture is not very well known in Australia. We're everywhere, but just in the cracks! Internationally our work is well-renowned, especially all throughout Europe.
The way I like to describe landscape architecture is it’s the intersection between architecture, ecology, and placemaking. Everything you experience outside of a building, like streets, pathways, and parks, is done by a landscape architect.
You would think people would know who we are, but this is good because it keeps us humble as there's no social prestige! We work across huge scales. Our work could be a statewide framework connecting energy or ecological systems, but it could also be as small as designing someone's backyard.
Most landscape architects will tell you it's about trying to re-engage with ecology by ripping away the concrete as far as we can to enhance biodiversity. It’s also innately our human nature to want to connect with the non-human environment, and that's good for our mental health.
To me, this work intrinsically connects with my cultural values and what we do as a community in terms of ensuring that relationships can exist with Country. Country still exists under a city, but it's hard to engage with because of the colonial grids set in place that do not engage our prefrontal cortex for decision making (which makes us build relationships).
The way I practice landscape architecture through Blaklash (and even before Blaklash) is by trying to break dow the barriers that are inherent in our public space people aren't even aware of. So much of our cities are designed to coerce and control people.
Back in the day (this is probably more of an American thing), bridges were built slightly lower over roads entering predominantly white communities, because all of the people of colour were using the buses. People didn't want them in their town, so they built the bridges lower so buses couldn't get through.
Little things like that which you probably don't even notice are huge staples of colonialisation and oppression, things that are all within in our built environment. You will still see anti rough-sleeper spikes and things like that around cities. This is hostile architecture.
These things are inherent, and you don't see them because we're conditioned to not do so. For landscape architects it's about challenging these problems. How are we talking about these issues in meetings with our clients and informing them that they have a responsibility to benefit the community and to not just be worried about their outcomes?
We try our best to do this. There's an incredible author Leslie Kern, I believe she identifies as a feminist geographer or something like that. She's an awesome feminist writer who is heavily involved in the urban design space.
She has this quote where she says, "the power to define the meaning of a place is also the power to create symbolic boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, who feels welcome, who belongs and whose presence becomes out of line with the redefined sense of place."
We think about this a lot. For example, a thing our Mob likes doing is corroboree, which involves getting together to sing and do a smoking. There also might be dancing depending on the community you're in.
Because of the stigmatisation of our communities, if the aunties and uncles in Brisbane all went down to say West End or the middle of the city and started doing a corroboree, police would be called, and security would arrive to kick them out even though they're not doing anything wrong.
The design of these spaces makes this [corroboree] a weird enactment of culture and practice. It is insane as a concept that we as people cannot express ourselves in our diverse ways because someone designed a courtyard in a way that's quite oppressive and controlling.
We try to break these structures down in small ways through the work we do. This ultimately can have a big impact
What role does purpose led business have in bringing communities together and bridging the gaps and divides we see?
For us it's all about this for our communities, it's all about purpose. In my opinion (and this might sound a little savage), if your business isn't about purpose, it's about capitalism. If it's about capitalism, then everybody in your town and everybody around you is just a commodity to be consumed and to make money off of.
That's just the world we live in, customers as opposed to people. If your business is about purpose, then it's about people and creating change. The business itself isn't the focus, it's this other thing that hopefully the business can allow you to do.
Even within that there are still challenges. We do a lot of work up on Gimuy Country, so Cairns, Far North Queensland. The elder group there, the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji crew are incredible leaders who are so generous with their time.
One of the more senior elders in that community unfortunately passed away several months ago, and this has rocked everybody. It was a huge loss of knowledge when he passed, so it was a big issue. Gudju Gudju Fourmile is his name, an absolute legend.
He was featured in Planet Earth when David Attenborough came to Cairns; he interviewed him to hear some of these old dreaming stories talking about how the Great Barrier Reef was formed, stories which have now been confirmed by science. The Gimuy said, "yeah, we already knew that," but David Attenborough said, “we've just proven it.” Well, we just listened.
In design, everybody talks about this thing called co-design, where you go out with communities on an " equal playing field" to design together while prioritising equity and empowerment. But Gudju says that we're never coming in on an equal intercultural plane, so how could equity be embedded in our processes? What are you saying?
This is true for us too. I'm an educated landscape architect, so even if I go out to my community and say, “this work is about you guys,” I am still actually holding the power in that interaction because I understand the language of landscape architecture and what it means to deliver on a project.
That power imbalance is huge and it's true for any platform around purpose. Someone's able to make a decision and someone generally isn't, even if you try to break it all down. How we bridge the gaps and address this within a purpose driven business is through making space.
This is what we try to enact at Blaklash as much as we can. There are still clients and deadlines, but we try to avoid delivering a project while wanting a specific change to happen that has been predisposed by someone else.
Instead, we'll go out to people and say, "this crew are talking about this solution, but that might not be right for you. Let’s just make as much space as we can for your community to speak, to have a voice, and to be heard.”
Then we'll go, "if all of this space is made for you guys and this thing is supposed to happen, how can we jerry rig that initiative to get what you actually want out of this?"
We're still in a position of power in that interaction, however, by creating space, we're trying our best to flip that on its head a little bit to make the system benefit that community as much as possible.
This is as opposed to saying, "this is what we think is good for you. Here it is." This is a challenging thing because people get consumed by it too. A lot of people's identity gets caught up in this work.
A great example and common joke about the whole vegan movement (which I support and admire but don’t have the fortitude for) is that if you meet a vegan, you will know because they'll tell you! That's because veganism is attached to their identity, but what does that means if something changes?
It means the understanding of that movement (whether it's veganism or something else) shifts. Then it's an attack on your identity, and people don't take that well. That's true for most purpose driven movements, it becomes attached to people's identity.
Even for us at Blaklash, we're doing good and trying to help our communities. If in retrospect, an elder comes out and says, "that was actually not great," that impacts us a lot because that's our identity and we draw so much strength from that.
There's this dynamic where people need to be more reflective as an iterative process towards purpose as opposed to just saying, “this is how impact needs to happen.” It's a complex place because you need to do a lot of self-work to maintain this space, especially if we're going to close the gap (if you want to call it that).
Where do you see key opportunities to grow the purpose driven business movement and what do you think we need to make business for good business as usual?
When you sent all the questions through, I pondered a lot about this one, because opportunity is such a strange thing. I over critique this word because it means a lot.
What I am seeing (and it could just be in the bubble I'm in) is a huge shift that’s been happening over the last few generations, let’s say from millennials onwards but also surely before that too.
Because of things like the internet and a cross pollination of ideas in we're now able to access, we're all gaining this incredible array of vocabulary to express ourselves.
Going to a psychiatrist is a great thing, so that's now called a 'green flag'. Back in the day, a bloke who went to a psychiatrist would be told to, "put a skirt on," and all these other horrible things.
That's changed a lot, and our capacity to understand who we are, how we're feeling, where we need to work on ourselves, and how we engage with the world is growing so rapidly.
What that also means is we're able to see each other better, and we're becoming clearer and clearer when engaging with someone. Maybe they've got some challenges in their life, and now it's easy to say, "they're going through this, and so this behaviour is attached to that problem that's got nothing to do with them,” and I can give them care and love instead of pushing them away.
I'm seeing that shift happening globally which is incredible. Why I bring that up is ultimately if that's happening and all these generations are growing in this capacity, these are the people who are going to be running businesses in future. They’re going to be bringing that mindset into their businesses inherently.
The opportunity I see is with us leaning into that and doing the necessary self-work, because if we're all better people, inherently we will have more businesses for good because we will be the cornerstones of every business.
The opportunity I see is in bringing together and creating more spaces around that shift. Ultimately, if we're better people, it's going to lead to better outcomes. That’s what I see, and so I’m almost de-centring the idea of business for good. Instead of attaching the term business, why can’t it be people for good?
If it becomes people for good, then that means you can talk about community, connection and all those things that are inherent and critical to a business that's focusing on social impact.
I'm so excited by how people can speak to their existence and say, "I'm sad today," and that's now okay. Everyone responds, "what do you need? Do you want to go and get a coffee or something," and that's normal nowadays. That wasn’t normal 20 years ago.
When I was in primary school, people were bashed for being gender diverse and they would need to leave schools and stuff. I'm not saying that doesn't happen anymore, but it's happening less, and so I think the opportunity is in us all coming together and working on ourselves, because then everything will change.
What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own purpose driven business or social enterprise?
Not to be repetitive, but I think the best way to start a business is to not start a business. It's first about that point of self-work; who are you surrounded by? What do you care about? Then, it’s ultimately how could that thing you care about be supported?
If you step through that process and work backwards from there, you will realise what thing needs to exist, and then you can just do it. Starting a business to start a business I think is always going to have inherent flaws, because you're just in a space to be in the space as opposed to the thing that the space is for.
If it's instead about the point of support, that means your business can be malleable and change, and you're not going to be emotionally attached to that change. You can say, "it needed to change because the problem needed a different point of help."
That's how Blaklash works, it’s just about, “well this Mob needs this, so let's just try to do that.” It's not about Blaklash, it's about our purpose and impact.
If people want to start a social enterprise around purpose and impact, then it needs to be about purpose and impact, not the enterprise. Theoretically, if we're all trying to create change through the work we do, then we're all trying to put ourselves out of a job.
If you start something to help kids who are sleeping on the streets, once there are no kids sleeping on the streets and you have done your job right, then you would close shop and that would be a great outcome. There's a certain point where you should not have any more work to do because it's been done right.
Theoretically, these are all aspirational goals, and so if your de-centre the business and centre values and empathy, then the business will just happen. The business is just a tool, you're creating a tool to solve an issue, not creating an issue to make, buy and sell a tool.
What it means is if you're doing it and you get tired or it doesn't go the way you want it to go and you must close it down, that's okay too because you tried your best.
Something I think about a lot is that it takes many raindrops to fill a lake if that makes sense, then every single one of those drops of water is so critical to that body of water and it won't happen without all of them.
Everybody gets caught up on these huge ideas of changing the world, but the world is made up of a dynamic, complex system of ineffably infinite parts, and we're part of that. To change the world, you just need to change each other, and every single small thing counts. A great example of this is probably one of my favourite stories from Blaklash.
We do a lot of work on big scale projects. We work on state level initiatives, we're involved in everything for the Olympics and all these other big things people would showboat about. However, we also do small things, and we try our best to boost up emerging Aboriginal artists if we can by finding them opportunities to upskill and things like that.
There's this young artist down South, Toby, who did some artwork that was going to be wrapped around some building columns in somewhere like the Sydney Harbour. Our managing director Troy Casey, a Kamilaroi man, was running this project, and you always see stories about these huge developments and how much money goes through them.
At Blaklash, we're very privy to the large budgets of development initiatives, you see them on the news often costing billions of dollars. When they eventually said, “we want an Aboriginal artist and we want to give them two thousand dollars,” we thought that if they’re running a billion-dollar project that will shape their identity that that's not great.
Troy fought hard to get a better budgetary outcome for Toby, but it didn't happen, and Troy was upset about it. He felt like he'd done a bad job by Toby and that he wasn't supporting him enough because we care about our community.
Anyway, Toby wasn't privy to some of these discussions, and while I doubt, he's listening, if he is, we’ve got your back! It didn't work out and Troy got upset, but then about a week later during our team meeting Troy got this text.
It was Toby standing in front of a bashed-up Nissan Patrol that he just bought with the money from the art project. His other car was completely broken, and he couldn't get around to work or do all these other things. He was finally able to buy this car, and the picture was of him standing in front of it just stoked beyond belief saying, "thank you so much."
That money changed Toby's life at that moment because it opened his capacity to do other things to boost his life. It was such a reality check to understand the different scales of impact, and that's why that lake and the rain metaphor is something I think about a lot.
Everything we're doing does something, and so if you're thinking about a business these big ideas are so important, but the little ones are almost more important because they happen every single day and you don't think about them. How you want to run a business doesn't always have to be this big idea, it can be small and relative to you and your community, but it's still as important as the big ones.
What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently creating a positive change?
I feel so lucky to be surrounded by incredible people who inspire me every single day. My colleagues are some of the most beautiful, intelligent people I've met in my life and I'm so lucky to be next to them and to see what they do. There are two people I will briefly speak about.
There's this incredible auntie, Auntie Terri Waller, who does work out on Gubbi Gubbi Country. Some time ago, she became distressed I suppose by seeing all these young Aboriginal kids who were being locked up. Our community are vilified by the police, so she wondered, “how do we break this?”
A lot of the kids felt like they weren't part of the community because of racism and all those sorts of things. They were being excluded and targeted, so she was like what's something everybody loves and gives everybody value?
She started this company called SevGen, short for seven generational thinking. Planning forward and stuff like that is foundational to our communities. Through SevGen, they opened this business called Deadly Espresso, and it's a little coffee shop ran out of Eumundi on the Sunshine Coast (and now they've got a stall in the new airport).
She started Deadly Espresso not to sell coffee, but instead because everybody loves their barista. She got the kids to come and work as baristas, and they were trained so they got a skill. As they were making coffees, they were now having the people in their community smile at them and say, "hey Sam, good to see you mate. Thanks for the coffee!"
Those little things can change these kids’ lives. They were now part of a community, and they felt like they were important. They could walk down the street of small towns and be a part of their community, just by making coffee for people.
SevGen has expanded to do other things, but I just think that is such a such a reminder of that small scale impact I was talking about before. The other initiative is a larger scale one called First Nations Futures, a social enterprise that opened up last year (2023) run by my colleague, Louis Mokak (a Djugun man).
Louis runs First Nations Futures with a couple of other people, and basically what it does is restructure how funding works. A lot of funding that gets put out there for social enterprises (especially for Aboriginal communities) require these huge arduous application forms to be submitted.
Usually, some philanthropist has said, “I've got a million dollars to give to a community and I want it to do this.” Often, this funding hamstrings existing initiatives because they then must adapt their businesses to suit the criteria of the funding. This can derail things for communities, but often they just can't even get it in the first place because the criteria restrict how the money can be used.
That hamstrings everything, and it's impactful because it makes things that should have taken two years take ten instead. People have to derail their businesses to get funding, and so First Nations Futures is about readdressing that issue, creating pools of money and working with communities by saying, "as long as you tell us what you've done in the next year, that's fine."
They've managed to gather millions of dollars already in donations, and they're supporting 13 or 14 Aboriginal communities and initiatives around the country already. It's unbelievable what they’re doing, and Louis’ a very smart man. It's so cool, and I didn't even know that that was an issue.
Louis’ a young man (he's only 27) and he's already doing this amazing work. I'm so grateful to be able to work with and learn from him in that regard.
To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend for our audience?
There is a book people are probably aware of called Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. This is probably one of the most important books I've ever read, and it breaks down what it means to be in a state of oppression and then also how to break out of that.
It's true for any cause in any community around the world, and it's all through praxis and enacting a value structure. It's profound and it also made me question whether or not I can actually speak English, because some of the words in this book are so big I was reading it while looking up the definition of words on my phone! I learned many things from that book, and English is one of them.
There’s also a book I read recently called Fugitive Feminism, and it’s an incredibly powerful read. Basically, it talks about the idea that around the world in structures of oppression, people are dehumanised. We’ve all heard that term get used. Often, it's anyone who's not a 180-centimetre-tall white male is dehumanised.
What she unpacks in this book is if everybody in the world (except for the white man) is dehumanised, then to be human is to be a white man, which we hate. The author flips it on its head and saying to be dehumanised is an opportunity for empowerment within us.
We can say, “I don't want to be like you. I don't want to embody you, because if I embody you as a human, then I am oppressing other people," which is something Paulo Freire also talks about in Pedagogy.
She reframes this idea of being dehumanised as an African woman and how she's able to flip that and become powerful. It gave her license to be even more culturally entrenched in her people by saying, "no, I am this, and I am not human because why would I ever want to be human if being human is to oppress others?" It's just this powerful feminist read that I would strongly recommend.
Initiatives, Resources and people mentioned on the podcast
Recommended books
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu
