Kaurna Cultural Heritage Study

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Port Adelaide, SA

Hemisphere Design's work on the 'Kaurna Cultural Heritage Survey', in association with GHD Pty Ltd, Vivienne Wood, City of Port Adelaide Enfield and The Kaurna Advisory Panel, set a new benchmark for combining social planning concepts and landscape design planning.

Landscapes throughout the Port Adelaide Enfield Council area have been greatly modified since European settlement and have brought about radical changes to the physical character of the estuary. With the undertaking of a qualitative analysis of local historical sources, the City of Port Adelaide Enfield found that the available documents charting the historical development of the Port Adelaide region mostly reflects a European Colonial perspective, and therefore is an incomplete record of the Kaurna cultural heritage within Port Adelaide Enfield.

The ultimate goal of the Port Adelaide Enfield Council is to facilitate the recognition and ongoing preservation, enhancement and celebration of Kaurna cultural heritage. The 'Kaurna Cultural Heritage Survey' involved Hemisphere Design's ongoing research and consultation with local Kaurna people as a means of properly informing all aspects of the study. These key Kaurna stakeholders helped guide the approach taken to complete the survey.

In order to provide a more accurate historical representation of Indigenous people in the Port area, the project required a sensitive approach by Hemisphere Design to acknowledge, verify and record local Kaurna heritage in such a way that celebrates Kaurna people and culture.

The high proportion of Indigenous people within the City of Port Adelaide Enfield highlights the importance to identify, define and capture a 'spirit/sense of place' where cultural and social values are considered. Therefore, the aim of this project is to enhance cross-cultural understanding of Indigenous heritage at the level of the broader community, and so enrich community development within the City.

The product of this collaboration was an easily legible document and presentation that clearly illustrates the outcomes of the study. The documentation highlights areas of heritage significance and places of specific Kaurna meaning, to be use in consideration of future land use planning, particularly within a highly urbanised European environment.

Hemisphere Design’s collaborative interpretation of the complex cultural, social and sensory concepts led to the successful cultural landscape illustrations of the Kaurna Cultural Heritage Survey.  This project has recently been acknowledged by the Planninng Institute of Australia, South Australia Division, with the award for Social and Community Planning, which recognises the works outstanding and innovative contribution to social planning practice in Australia.

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