The Praxis Lab RMIT is a space where communities, activists, and researchers come together to engage in praxis - the continuous interplay of transformative action and critical reflection - with the collective goal of strengthening our capacity to foster meaningful social change and care with healthier places, ecologies and territories.
A collaboration between the Centre for Urban Research (CUR) and The Alliance for Praxis Research (APR), this lab orients academic impact towards relationships of respect and responsibility with the communities and places we work. A space where academic inquiry meets community-driven change, dismantling boundaries between research and practice to create an experimental environment that supports bold thinking, co-creation, and collective action.
As an ongoing series of relationships, the Lab engages in many projects:
Regenerating a Body of Water:
A Walk with Birrarung-ga
This place-based storytelling walk along the Birrarung River explores Indigenous and colonial histories of water in Birrarung-ga, the land of the river of mists. Designed with Professor N’arwee’t Carolyn Briggs and Troy Innocent, the project reflects on our urban relationship with water and inspires regenerative practices beyond colonial and extractive paradigms.
Seeing the Food Forest Through the Trees: Community Indicators for Regenerative Circularity
Set in Kensington’s Public Housing estate, this project highlights how grassroots food and forest initiatives can drive regenerative circularity. Co-created indicators, a community report, and an interactive magazine reveal the deeper socioecological values embedded in the Food Forest and its potential to influence inclusive urban futures. This project tells the story of an social and ecological urban catalyst, where food production and forest growth create community and circularity. Set within the Kensington Public Housing estates, the Food Forest thrives on Wurundjeri Country, offering a site for reflection, regeneration, and grassroots action. A collaboration between APR and the Kensington Circular Economy Precinct Community Group (KCEPCG), this project dives deep into the often-overlooked power of grassroots initiatives, showcasing the Food Forest as a space that nurtures values like biodiversity, social equity, and community well-being. By co-creating Community Indicators for Regenerative Circularity with the local community, our research captures less visible narratives that transcend traditional metrics, revealing the complexities of building a regenerative circular economy. After the delivery of the report “Seeing the Food Forest Through the Trees: Community Indicators for Regenerative Circularity” (insert hyperlink: https://www.aprcollective.com/post/seeing-the-food-forest-through-the-trees), Praxis Lab RMIT enabled the project to further disseminate the findings with the local and wider community. In partnership with Secil Taskoparan, the Lab co-created an interactive magazine that decoded the language of the indicators into an engaging and playful exploration of Kensington’s initiatives for regenerative circularity, framed through the rich and complex relationships within this socioecological landscape. This magazine serves as a tool for community members, practitioners, and policymakers alike, offering an accessible, visually captivating format that showcases the initiatives’ broader significance while remaining deeply rooted in the local context. By making these indicators tangible and interactive, we hope to inspire further grassroots action and reflection on how urban spaces like Kensington can lead the way toward regenerative practices. Further, Praxis Lab will support the development of relationships between the Kensington Circular Economy Precinct Community Group (KCEPCG) and the First Nations sovereign people of the land on which the Food Forest exists: “I often think that what we need moving forward, and it's not talking about what you can't, but what we can still do. In this space, we're talking about sharing nature and everyone around us, but it's also not our land, you know, it is Wurundjeri People's land, so I'd like to be able to bring that into this space as well.” (Focus Group Workshop on April 13, 2024) As the project evolves, the community wants to deepen this connection through more intentional collaboration with Indigenous communities, ensuring that the Food Forest not only reflects cultural diversity but also honours the land's original custodians.
Deadly Fringe 2025:
Projections of a Current Future
A live art experience of cycling, storytelling, and video projection, this event will explore Melbourne’s hidden waterways and Boon Wurrung knowledge. It centres Indigenous creative voices to reveal the cultural and ecological layers of Naarm’s landscape, supported by Praxis Lab through funding and collaborative research. Through a performance of collective cycling, civic space occupation, storytelling and multimedia art, Projections of a Current Future is a live art event which is designed to illuminate the ancestral Indigenous memories and ecological significance of Melbourne's waterways. Organised by APR in collaboration with Boon Wurrung Elder Prof. N’arwee’t Carolyn Briggs, Amina Briggs, Deadly Fringe, and The Little Projector Company, participants will embark on a journey to uncover the hidden water domains of Williams Creek and Naarm's urban landscape. The project highlights Indigenous Boon Wurrung knowledge and continues connection with Country, even within urbanisation and climate emergency, centring its production on expertise and talent of Indigenous visual artists. The Praxis Lab RMIT will amplify this work through funding and intellectual collaboration. The funding will support the Indigenous creative storytelling work and historical / archival research of the sites to expose colonial interventions and highlight ancestral attributes of the landscape.
Scales of Radical Praxis
During the 2024 Conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers, APR session explored radical praxis across body, community, and global scales. Based on that event, Praxis Lab now wants to generate tools and interactive resources to help scholars combine activism and research, fostering engaged scholarship within geography and beyond. In an attempt to hold critical urban scholars accountable, Margit Mayer (2020) states that “We have enough facts, we know the threats, and the injustices are clear—but how to move forward now… What can be done?” (p.42). In her journal article: What does it mean to be a (radical) urban scholar activist, or activist scholar, today? Mayer provokes us to act: how then should we respond? Through the APR-led session at the Conference of Australian Geographers 2024, entitled “Scales of Radical Praxis” we invited presenters and participants to reflect on how we, as critical urban scholars, engage in radical praxis, spanning from the body to community and global scales. These conversations revealed the transformative possibilities of blending activism and scholarship across diverse scales and contexts. These discipline-shaping activities are amplified with support and collaboration Praxis Lab RMIT. From the outcomes of the discussion, the Lab will develop materials, including an interactive publication, a digital resource documenting conference discussions, and a tool for further engagement. These materials will be disseminated throughout the discipline of geography and via the national Institute of Australian Geographers to provide a toolkit for radical praxis and encourage further reflection on how scholars can effectively engage in activist scholarship.
Community support and
praxis mentorship program
The Lab wants to support HDRs through a peer-led mentorship network of early-career researchers. Meeting monthly, mentors and mentees share experiences, build connections, and develop skills in a supportive, relational space committed to academic care, development, and collective learning. The Lab holds the commitment to nurture a community of praxis within RMIT, therefore meets fortnightly at the Centre for Urban Research, and has an active mentorship program. Praxis Lab mentors catch up with HDRs mentees once a month to chat about their PhD, work-life balance and other concerns mentees might have during their incursion into academia. Praxis Lab Mentors have either recently finished their PhD or are about to, or are ECRs able to offer guidance and support to emerging ECRs and PhD Candidates. While mentees will be offered guidance and support of experienced ECRs, the mentors will have the opportunity to upskill their development by fostering new networks, collaborations and intrapersonal skills. Plus, we believe sharing is caring, so sharing experiences is a relational way to foster, build and nourish our community. Please fill this form to be part of this program (either as mentor or mentee). Associated with the Praxis Lab RMIT mentoring program, we are seeking to learn what areas and experiences have been challenging for PhD candidates, and applying that awareness to design a workshop, and a fun and interactive output that can help current and future HDRs in our extended communities to better navigate their journey and succeed in careers within and beyond academia. You can help this initiative by sharing your experience through this form, and share it with others that can contribute with it.
The Fabrics of Care Workshop
To formally establish the Lab and its activities, a Praxis Workshop was held on the 12 of November in 2024. Open to all CUR members, the workshop supported the development of an understanding of praxis for researchers, the work of the Lab and the creation of a set of Praxis principles. We plan to produce a dissemination material with some of the reflections we all put together that day.
The Alliance for Praxis Research
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The Centre for Urban Research
1 The indissociable and continuous becoming of critical thought and action
2 A place equipped for experimental study
3 An educational institution
More projects coming soon!
Have some fun with our Praxis crosswords!
