Sugden Institute Indigenous Oration

The Master and Head of College, Dr Michael Stepniak, warmly invites you and your guest to the annual Indigenous Oration at Queen’s College.

This year’s speaker is Kevin O’Brien, one of Australia’s most influential Indigenous architects. With a practice deeply grounded in Country and three decades of visionary work, Kevin will challenge us to consider how the arts can reveal what has been hidden, call us to deeper listening, and renew our shared commitments to truth, identity, and justice.

Finding Limits
Kevin O’Brien

Thursday 21 August 2025
5:30pm arrival for 6pm Oration
Junior Common Room
Queen’s College

RSVP here by Thursday 14 August.

No onsite parking:
Uber, taxi, trams recommended.

Synopsis
Over the past 30 years, moments to step outside daily practice and critically reflect on architecture’s role in shaping culture and society have been rare. Presenting The Finding Country Exhibition at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale sparked a deeper engagement with the arts, revealing its power as a space for unbounded imagination. Collaborations with First Nations creatives—like Archie Moore on Kith and Kin for the 2024 Venice Biennale, and Issac Drandic on Dear Son for Queensland Theatre 2025—have shown how the arts reflect and question our national identity. The arts give voice to complex stories, engage freedom of thought and speech, and underpin democracy. Yet today, we see funding cuts to arts organisations, politicisation of the Venice Biennale 2026 artist selection, and the cancellation of First Nations cultural projects. It is no longer a matter of simply supporting the arts, the arts are under attack.

About Kevin O’Brien
Kevin O’Brien (b. 1972, Melbourne) is a Principal Architect at BVN, renowned for forging deep cultural connections through his “Designing with Country” approach, which intertwines Indigenous, colonial, and multicultural narratives in architecture. A Kaurareg–Meriam descendant, he earned his BArch (1995) and MPhil in Architecture (2006) from the University of Queensland. In 2018, he joined BVN, where he leads multidisciplinary teams and champions carbon-conscious design. O’Brien has held academic roles at QUT, University of Sydney, and Portland State University, and curated the influential “Finding Country” at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.