Paul Memmott

Last updated

Paul Memmott

AO
NationalityAustralian
Occupation(s)architect, anthropologist, academic
Known forDirector of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland

Paul Christopher Memmott AO is an Australian architect, anthropologist, academic and the Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland. He is an expert on topics related to Indigenous architecture and vernacular architecture, housing, homelessness and overcrowding.

Contents

Early life

Paul Memmott was born to married couple Estelle "Cootch" Powell and Harry Memmott [1] who were both pottery artists. [2] [3] He took art classes from Mervin Moriarty before enrolling at the University of Queensland. His program was influenced by student protests of human rights at the University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as lecturers who considered art and architectural psychology as integral to the discipline. [4] He tutored in art and exhibited as part of the Contemporary Art Society, Queensland. [5] He graduated with a B.Arch in 1972.

Career

As part of his professional placement Memmott worked for the Queensland State Works Department and was recruited to join a project organised by Nugget Coombs to visit Mt Isa and Cloncurry where an Aboriginal community centre was to be constructed. He and fellow students formed a group called the Aboriginal Development Group as they looked at the fringe camps of the region, many before they were destroyed. [4] [6] The group would become the precursor of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland. His analysis of Indigenous design led to a post graduate scholarship on the spatial behaviour of Aboriginal people in North West Queensland. Memmott studied social anthropology in 1974 and commenced his PhD, with Bruce Rigsby as one of his supervisors. [6] He helped establish an Aboriginal Data Archive in 1976. [2] [7] He completed his PhD in 1979 at the University of Queensland. He established a research consultancy practice in 1980, for architectural and anthropological work. This led to work in Aboriginal land rights claims, native title claims and submissions to courts. Memmott is a lecturer at the University of Queensland and is a Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University. [8]

Memmott has published over 300 publications and has supervised over 50 postgraduate students.

Exhibition work

Awards

Honours and recognition

Published works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Queensland</span> Public research university in Australia

The University of Queensland is a public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone universities, an informal designation of the oldest university in each state. UQ is also a founding member of edX, Australia's leading Group of Eight and the international research-intensive Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian art</span> Art made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia

Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mornington Island</span> Island off the coast of Australia

Mornington Island, also known as Kunhanhaa, is an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. It is the northernmost and largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley Islands group. The largest town, Gununa, is in the south-western part of the island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humpy</span>

A humpy, also known as a gunyah, wurley, wurly or wurlie, is a small, temporary shelter, traditionally used by Australian Aboriginal people. These impermanent dwellings, made of branches and bark, are sometimes called a lean-to, since they often rely on a standing tree for support.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Desert cultural bloc</span> Aboriginal Australian cultural region in Central Australia

The Western Desert cultural bloc is a cultural region in central Australia covering about 600,000 square kilometres (230,000 sq mi), used to describe a group of linguistically and culturally similar Aboriginal Australian nations.

The Kooma are a contemporary aggregation of Indigenous Australian peoples descending from tribes living in the border region of Queensland and New South Wales. They are descendants of the Koamu.

Jumbun is an Aboriginal community located in Murray Upper, Cassowary Coast Region which is 40 kilometres (25 mi) south-west of Tully in Far North Queensland, Australia. The word "jumbun" means "wood-grub" in Girrimay. The residents of Jumbun are predominantly from the Girrimay and Dyirbal Aboriginal nations. At the 2011 census, Jumbun had a population of 104.

Caramut is a town in the Western District of Victoria, Australia on the Hamilton Highway. It is in the Shire of Moyne local government area and the federal Division of Wannon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrietta Marrie</span>

Henrietta Marrie is a Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder, an Australian Research Council Fellow and Honorary Professor with the University of Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UQ Law School</span> Law school of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia

The UQ Law School is the law school of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Founded in 1936, UQ law school is the sixth oldest law school in Australia and the oldest operating in Queensland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaurareg</span> Torres Strait Islander group of people

Kaurareg is the name for one of the Indigenous Australian groups collectively known as Torres Strait Islander peoples, although many or most identify as Aboriginal Australians. They are the traditional owners of Thursday Island (Waiben) as well as a number of Torres Strait Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Grant (anthropologist)</span> Australian architect and anthropologist (1963–2022)

Elizabeth Grant CF was an Australian architectural anthropologist, criminologist and academic working in the field of Indigenous Architecture. She was a Churchill Fellow and held academic positions at The University of Adelaide, as Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University's RMIT School of Architecture and Design, Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra and the University of Queensland. She researched, wrote, and was an activist focused on architecture and design with Indigenous peoples as architectural practice and a social movement, and the observance of human rights in institutional architecture. Her expertise in Indigenous housing and homelessness, design for Indigenous peoples living with disability, and indigenising public places and spaces made her a regular guest on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National and ABC Local Radio. She wrote and reviewed architectural projects for architectural magazines such as Architecture Australia, the journal of the Australian Institute of Architects, and the Australian Design Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous architecture</span> Field of architecture

The field of Indigenous architecture refers to the study and practice of architecture of, for and by Indigenous people. It is a field of study and practice in the United States, Australia, Aotearoa, Canada, Arctic area of Sápmi and many other countries where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built environment. This has been extended to landscape architecture, urban design, planning, public art, placemaking and other ways of contributing to the design of built environments.

The Kaiadilt are an Aboriginal Australian people of the South Wellesley group in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, Australia. They are native to Bentinck Island, but also made nomadic fishing and hunting forays to both Sweers and Allen Islands. Most Kaiadilt people now live on Mornington Island.

The Yawijibaya, also written Jaudjibaia, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Along with the Unggarranggu people, they are the traditional owners of the Buccaneer Archipelago, off Derby, together known as the Mayala group for native title purposes. Yawijibaya country includes Yawajaba Island and the surrounding Montgomery Reef.

The artist known as r e a is an Aboriginal Australian artist, also known as r e a Saunders, sometimes written Rea Saunders. As of 2019 r e a is a lecturer within the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Unit at the University of Queensland.

Paul Tripcony (1901–1975) was an Indigenous Australian and a collector of rare books and Aboriginal stone artefacts from Minjerribah, also known as Stradbroke Island.

Carroll Go-Sam is an Indigenous Australian architect and academic.

Caroline Tennant-Kelly (1899–1989) was an Australian theatre producer, Aboriginal rights activist and anthropologist.

David Samuel Trigger is an Australian anthropologist, author, and academic. He is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Queensland (UQ) as well as Adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He is a Member and previous Co-Chair of the Professor Ronald Berndt and Dr. Catherine Berndt Research Foundation at UWA and has served as the Co-Director of the Centre for Native Title Anthropology at the Australian National University. He is the Principal Partner in David S. Trigger & Associates consulting anthropologists.

References

  1. "Mervin Feeney 1914-2013" (PDF). Western Suburbs Clayworkers Newsletter. August 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Digital Archive of Queensland Architecture". qldarch.net. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  3. "* Cootch Memmott". Flickr. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Digital Archive of Queensland Architecture". qldarch.net. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  5. Fridemanis, Helen (1989). "Contemporary Art Society, Queensland Branch, 1961-1973 : a study of the post-war emergence and dissemination of aesthetic modernism in Brisbane. B.Sc Thesis". espace.library.uq.edu.au. doi:10.14264/uql.2020.764 . Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 "Paul Memmott- 2014 Fellow Elect - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  7. "TIMESTYLE". Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). 29 January 1984. p. 8. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  8. "Professor Paul Memmott - UQ Researchers". researchers.uq.edu.au. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  9. "Meston's Wild Australia Show 1892-1893". Mandana Mapar. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  10. "Camps, cottages, and homes: A brief history of Indigenous housing in Queensland". Univerisity of Queensland. 8 July 2022. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
  11. "Aboriginal architecture expert receives Stanner Award". UQ News. 27 March 2009. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  12. "2015 AAA Awards: Neville Quarry Architectural Education Prize". ArchitectureAU. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  13. "Australian projects to hit the world stage at Venice Architecture Biennale". ArchitectureAU. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  14. "Professor Paul Christopher MEMMOTT". It's An Honour. Retrieved 25 January 2021.