Desiree Hernandez Ibinarriaga

Indigenous Mexican woman with Chamula (Mayan), Nahua (Aztec) and Euskaldunak (Basque) heritage. Lecturer, Collaborative design and HDR coordinator at Wominjeka Djeembana Research Lab, Monash University. Desiree is a creative practitioner and a collaborative and social design maker and thinker. She is Lecturer at MADA, and Coordinator for Indigenous Higher Degrees by Research being part of Wominjeka Djeembana Research Lab cohort. She has over 14 years of experience in the design field, across diverse disciplines, such as decolonising design, Indigenous design, sustainability, social, furniture and interior design. Desiree’s work focuses on Indigenous peoples’ building of capacity and better ways of partnership and communication between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people through design, by recognising the relationality between people and Place while privileging Indigenous knowledges.

Wominjeka (Welcome). We acknowledge the Yaluk-ut Weelam as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet. Yaluk-ut Weelam means ‘people of the river camp’ and is connected with the coastal land at the head of Port Phillip Bay, extending from the Werribee River to Mordialloc. The Yaluk-ut Weelam are part of the Boon Wurrung, one of the five major language groups of the greater Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to the land, their ancestors and their elders—past, present and to the future.