“Spirit is pure, so that’s what I feel here.” – Aunty Margret

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“Spirit is pure, so that’s what I feel here.” – Aunty Margret

Posted 05.07.2023

By Maker Michelle Evans interviewing Aunty Margret Campbell

Following the completion of Make’s latest heritage and hotel project, Capella Sydney, project designer Michelle Evans sat down with Aboriginal Elder Aunty Margret Campbell to talk about the history of the site and how meaningful engagement can lead to better outcomes for all.

Aunty Margret has over 30 years’ experience leading cultural tours through her company, Dreamtime Southern X. She has partnered with Capella Sydney to offer cultural experiences to hotel guests.

Michelle Evans: Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the community?

Aunty Margret Campbell: I’m an Elder from Dunghutti Country about four and a half hours north of Sydney. I’m one of eight siblings. Under the White Australia policy, we weren’t allowed to mix in with non-Aboriginal people, so I spent my first 13 years of life, before I went into a white school, here in New South Wales in Kempsey. And then later on, when the White Australia policy started relaxing, we moved down here [to Sydney].

We had very strong community activism in terms of our human rights. As a teenager, I was caught up in that sort of stuff, and we were on the streets marching in peaceful demonstrations. The first Aboriginal organisations were sanctioned by the government, and they were given some public service funds to accommodate for housing needs, education needs and health. In the 70s, the ‘Charles Perkins era’, we call it, resulted in the Tent Embassy in Canberra on the lawns of the Parliament House. We established a makeshift embassy in our own country, and that’s still absolutely down there as we speak, stood firm since 1972. As a follow on from the Tent Embassy, we had the federal government take responsibility for First Nations people in 1975 [following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s government], because prior to that, there was still killing going on. The White Australia policy was still very active, segregation policies, I call them ‘rejection policies’, and the devaluing policies of the first peoples’ humanity had been going on. So my activism was activated through the fact that I had been segregated against. I prefer to use the word that I felt quite ‘rejected’ from an early age from White Australia.

I became a teacher through one of those education programmes that allowed for Aboriginal people to go into universities. I was part of the contingent that contributed to getting 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers by the year 1990. [That was] in the late 70s/early 80s. We were dealing with governments of the time – local, state and federal – [but] not really having a voice in our own country.

ME: I remember you said to me you actually had experience with this building. Can you explain to me your connection with the Department of Education Building before it became Capella Sydney?

MC: This is where it all began. This building was the heart piece of the Westminster education system – our pedagogy in teaching and learning.

I spent my life getting involved in the early childhood area, and I subsequently enrolled in that [teaching] programme. In my first year, we were contacted by the authorities from this very building. People within the non-Aboriginal decision-making level realised that if they were going to get the correct curriculum, they needed to contact and have conversations with Aboriginal people, so I was part of some of that to begin with. So we found ourselves coming down here to be part of the consultation, the setting up of conversations, as the voices for education throughout New South Wales. We established our New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group [to get] our culture taught in schools and our history taught accurately.

We always called this beautiful building the ‘sandstone cave’, because it was built with our sandstone bricks, the high-quality, high-grain, sandstone Narrabeen brick. So we always had a feeling when we came into this [building] in consultation, developing the first policies. That was in 1977–1979, and in 1982 that policy was launched. We had an Aboriginal education unit, and I was one of the founding woman chairpersons of that. It wasn’t just me, but I was a strong voice advocating for the sorts of things I’m still advocating for today. I made sure that my voice was heard in those days – I always was there in some sort of leadership role to do that.

Make has transformed the listed Department of Education building in the heart of Sydney, dating back to 1912, into the 5-star hotel Capella Sydney.

Swirling murals in Capella's McRae Bar by Gumbaynggirr/Bundjalung artist Otis Hope Carey.

ME: I think as architects and designers, we need to engage more. What do you think the role of architects and architecture is in promoting Aboriginal culture?

MC: It doesn’t matter what industry. For instance, if you’re looking at building and construction, even to the scaffolding pre-building, there is story within that landscape. When you start digging around, you’re actually interfering with the earth mothers. If you go into the health and medical sectors, they’re not dealing with our Aboriginal healing methodologies, our remedies, our healing, even simple balms. It’s just pure Western science and medicine. If you’re going into the housing sector, they’re not building based on our construct of a house. They’re very square, elongated or rectangle buildings, they’re not round. Everywhere you go, our lifestyle, our values and our beliefs, and what’s important to us in terms of daily lifestyle, it’s all rejected.

The onus is on us to give them [non-Aboriginal people] the story, not for them to say, ‘what can I do? How do I understand? Can I go out and do my own research and find out about what went on here?’ The onus is on us to give the information.

ME: You’re right – we don’t know, and we need to do more to understand. But then it’s also about how we need to be engaging more.

MC: It’s not just a matter of that. I mean, you’ve got to have two people to converse. We’re just being asked to converse about us. So there’s no true meaningfulness to it.

We’re not recognised as the first human beings [with all] our governance structures in place, our land management, our water management, our economies – all that hasn’t been recognised. That’s why I’ve maintained my presence, which led me to a different delivery of education: the cultural tours.

We have an opportunity [at Capella] to get the key people in and then start the whole conversation the meaningful way. You’ve got this real, meaningful relationship evolving, where they’ve gone out of their way to say, ‘We really want to do something about understanding, can we have someone coming in here?’ But it’s the first time in my career tourism-wise that we’re having this engagement.

ME: On your tours, do you generally get a mix of Australians, locals and tourists attending? Or is it predominantly hotel guests? And when you’re doing the tours, are you walking around the city as well as the site?

MC: Whoever has a booking in the hotel, as I understand, they’d have an opportunity to be part of the experience. Eventually [we’ll] build up to having other Elders come in for a conversation over cups of tea, but we’re building into that. We wanted to make sure that the guests who were coming to Capella have an opportunity [to understand] the history of this place, and also how the culture is still very much a part of the Sydney landscape.

One’s got to understand their own culture in order to understand somebody else’s culture. I think what’s contributing to the big breakdown in cultural misinformation is [that] I think generally Australians don’t know what their culture is. They don’t have a term of reference. They can’t relate to the indigenous food, but Capella [is] introducing all that into the menus.

The cultural tours around this area are all about seasonal education, because cultural customs and traditions are all connected intrinsically to 72 seasons that haven’t changed, despite the building of a magnificent new city. [During the walks,] we can walk around in the Botanical Gardens, where the Aboriginal plants are, and in the streets of Sydney and in other little parklands – there’s still lots of First Nations native plants, so obviously we can talk about whether [the native plants are] incorporated into menus and flavours in terms of modern cuisine. But one of the main things I always get across is: it’s not about a human being and our land management being able to deal with the food chain, for instance, under our cultural law and management and farming, you just can’t go and take any plant just because it has a nice flavour. There’s a whole lot of rules and regulations in terms of how you plant that, how you harvest it, and how you make sure that it never becomes endangered or a threatened species.

Retained Edwardian Baroque-style sandstone facade.

Heritage doors with original details restored.

ME: What have you loved most about this collaboration with Capella and your role?

MC: I’m really happy about the respect that’s been given, the acknowledgement from the owners who have actually moved mountains to access [the building] from the state government.

When you look at the integrity of what’s going on with the purchasers and what they’re now doing with the facility and the building, I’m happiest about the fact that the respect has come all the way through, because they have ensured that the Aboriginal connections and links, and the growth of those links and communications, will go beyond just me and my immediate team.

ME: What I’ve noticed in architecture, and with projects like this, is that often engagement can be quite token, or it stops once something’s built. I think Capella is such a great collaboration because it’s not about that.

MC: It’s about pure and simple respect. It’s two groups communicating. They invited us to the table and they sat at the table with us, whereas before, we couldn’t ever get that. I haven’t seen that since the day we came into this building way back, and that’s over 40 years ago.

ME: How does it feel being in the building? Does it still feel the same?

MC: Well, not exactly the same, but I think the spirit of what is going on with Capella and the owners, the staff, the delivery, that spirit is there and that’s what’s inviting for me and my team. Because we not only got invited to come to the table in a respectful manner, but that’s also been reciprocated back again, [and] that’s the core of what the spirit’s all about here.

When we say, ‘acknowledge the custodians of the past’, remember, when it lives in the bricks and the walls and the concrete and the resources and materials, it still holds a spirit of what was originally here, it reinforces to me that you can’t mess with spirit. Spirit is pure, so that’s what I feel here.

A grand hotel for Sydney

Capella Sydney