A proud Wiradjuri Dabee man belonging to the Cudgeegong River, Matte Ager-McConnell is a Lecturer in Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Matte is also Design Director of garigarra, a critical spatial practice working on major public, cultural and infrastructure projects across NSW. 

 

His work examines how colonial systems have reshaped the contemporary built environment, disrupting and silencing longstanding Indigenous practices of designing, caring for and governing Country. Through Country-led methodologies, counter-mapping, and situated, relational and spatial modes of inquiry, he challenges business-as-usual practices and foregrounds design as an ongoing responsibility for and to Country. 

 

Grounded in Wiradjuri ways of being, knowing and doing, garigarra and yindyamarra, his research, teaching and practice resist extractive approaches to lands, knowledges and communities. Instead, he advocates for relational and decolonial design practices that recognise continuing First Nations practices, sovereignty and governance, past, present and future, and hold designers accountable to Country.

 

Matte currently coordinates Architectural Studio 01, the first-year design studio and first point of entry into students’ architectural education. He introduces students to an architectural education that begins, first and foremost, with Country, rather than a historically dominant conception of the (white, male, universalised) human as the starting point for design.

 

As part of the Indigenous Institute for Designing with Country, he supports Professor Alison Page to advance Country-centred teaching, research and industry practice.