Massive Action Sydney 2023-25
We choose urgent change
Projects selected for ongoing development
Five projects ideas from the 2022 Massive Action Sydney design sprint have been selected for further development. Projects receive ongoing mentorship with Massive Change Network (MCN), along with strategic advice and support on project management, collaboration and resourcing through the ADA Innovation Hub. These projects will now commence an 18-month project development phase focused on design and implementation across 2023/2024. Projects will also receive marketing, communication and international visibility through the MAS network.
Making Good Media
Project Lead: Rebecca Green
What if the media empowered us to combat climate change?
The media maps and shapes our culture. But today’s stories don’t reflect the overwhelming consensus that we’re having a negative impact on the planet.
We can create a culture of positive climate actions with simple shifts. The weather presenter could improve our understanding of the energy grid, the finance report could redefine value and what it means to be a market-leader, a cooking show could help reduce food waste, and children’s television could inspire the next generation and give their parents hope. We can inform and empower broad audiences without increasing climate anxiety.
Content innovation and shifts in language can make an exponential difference. But we need the right people in the room – an intersectional community with diverse knowledges, supporting First Nations perspectives, data-based climate science, life-centred design, economic strategy, and more. Be part of it – it’s already happening.
Caring for Country Leave
Project Co-Lead: Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard; Project Indigenous Co-Lead: TBC
What if you changed your mindset from what you can get to what you can give?
First Nations knowledge systems recognise all things are of and from the land. We exist in a reciprocal relationship with Country, and we have a responsibility to give back to it. However, western cultural agencies and institutions rarely hold space for this.
By engaging in and reflecting on reciprocity, we can become a part of an irresistible collaborative responsibility to care for and honour the land. Giving back, connecting and caring for Country allows us to demonstrate real action towards climate change together with First Nations communities and all life within and across stolen and unceded land in Australia.
Caring for Country leave is proactive and preventative climate action. Access a new category of leave that enables you to give back to Country through culturally and environmentally appropriate activities locally and across Australia.
(Daily) Delight~Disrupt
Project Co-Lead: Tema Milstein; Project Co-Lead: John Carr
What if we shifted common sense to support more restorative ways of being?
Many people in Western/ised and/or industrial/ised settings are potentially very empowered yet feel incapable of contributing to broader socio-environmental solutions.
(Daily) Delight~Disrupt cultivates a movement through ecoculture jams - playful public unsettlings that promote and experientially manifest creative and restorative ways of being while disrupting the destructive status quo. The movement is developing an interactive living archive of existing ecoculture jams and a shared collective action formula. It is also producing new daily repeating and evolving local ecoculture jams that are simple and easily upscaled to global, such as Tree-hugger Tuesdays and Seed-bombing Sundays, and collaborating on methods for their impactful mass dissemination.
Spark irresistible delight every day of the week and ignite your agency to connect with and care for others, place, ecosystem, and species in power for the planet.
Being or Zombeing?
Project Lead: Jill Bennett
What if we recognised seconds and minutes as the meaningful first steps of massive action?
More than 50 per cent of people who experience trauma and anxiety do not access any treatment. Issues with engagement, accessibility and the suitability of existing resources for trauma and emotional distress demand urgent attention.
Being or Zombeing? is developing an expanding set of interactive media tools designed with, by and for communities of lived experience. These easy-to-use, awe-inspiring and accessible resources are designed for self-directed use in the community, located in places where people live and work. They each require less than 15-minute engagement.
Following a set of trauma-informed design principles, the tools deliver specific psychosocial benefits. They can be used on a one-off basis, repeatedly or as a part of programs, and adapted to varying community needs. Access innovative and engaging tools tailored to different communities and capitalise on the cumulative benefits of expertise through both research and lived experience.
re-situ
Project Co-Lead: Charlotte Adams (Art & Design student); Project Co-Lead: Bronte Contador-Kelsall (ADA alumna)
Project Facilitator: Emma Mills
What if all knowledge was resituated in place?
It is estimated human knowledge doubles every 12 hours, but most people don’t engage with it meaningfully. Many knowledge platforms ignore the knowledge-place connection. Yet providing greater context and promoting local engagement increases motivation and knowledge retention.
re-situ, a place-based multi-media platform, changes the way we share knowledge, process information and learn. Working together with First Nations collaborators through co-design, it elevates First Nations knowledge and culture to foster recognition, respect and profound revaluing. The platform promotes cultural protocols for sharing First Nations place-based knowledge that ensure reciprocity, respect and data sovereignty.
re-situ increases our capacity to listen, unlearn and relearn while encouraging a greater connection to Country. Enter through a cartographic map, explore Indigenous place-based truths, and contribute your own place-based insights. Experience knowledge embedded in place firsthand.
