Last night I went to a public forum at Deakin Edge where a number of speakers were discussing Indigenous visual representations in Australia’s architectural and design landscape. The discussion centred around the recent unveiling of the 31-storey portrait of Wurundjuri leader and elder William Barak in the balconies of the new white apartment building that sprung up next to RMIT.

The news of the portrait provoked widespread social media commentary both for and against. At times the discussion became quite heated particularly between Linda Kennedy a recent graduate of Melbourne Uni and writer of the blog page – Future Black and Howard Raggart one of the architects of the William Barak apartment building. It was impossible for these two to meet in the middle and I found myself strongly siding with Linda.

I find the building a shallow contribution towards reconciliation and a distraction from the reality of life for Indigenous Australians. Especially at a time when the government is cutting funding to many Indigenous programs and communities. I felt like Howards foremost intention was the creation of 530 luxury CBD apartments and the lifelong dedication of William Barak and the entire Kulin nation struggle over land was to give the building significance as a kind of backhanded tribute…He just didn’t seem like he did it for himself and indigenous people. I’m probably being very harsh but for someone that knows very little about architecture, I find the building will flicker across the retina and dissolve from the consciousness as quickly as a billboard…okay maybe occasionally someone will pull out their phone and Google who’s face their seeing but I wonder how many people know what Barak was actually famous for? Some people might be shocked to learn that our ‘settlers’ were such ruthless and brutal people.