(Daily) Delight~Disrupt

Project Co-Lead

Tema Milstein's work is in the field of environmental communication, a social science and humanities transdiscipline that understands communication as a powerful force at a time of human-generated ecological and climatic crises. She is particularly known for cultural approaches to studying how communication shapes ecological understandings, identities, and actions. Her work tends to discourses that otherwise go unnoticed, to connections between discourses and wider destructive or restorative practices, and to paths toward sustainable, just, and regenerative futures. Her research spans the globe, illustrating tensions between overarching and marginalised environmental meaning systems, examining ecotourism and environmental activism, and establishing the study of ecocultural identities. Milstein's publicly open access Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (Routledge, 2020, co-editor José Castro-Sotomayor) gathers 40 international interdisciplinary authors to bring the ecological turn to sociocultural understandings of the self. She is a former Fulbright Scholar and is the 2020 recipient of the Faculty of Arts, Design, and Architecture Dean's Research Award for Society Impact. 

Project Co-Lead

Dr. John Carr is an urban and legal geographer whose work focuses on the intersections of urban geography, law, planning, and human and non-human environments.  In particular, his research seeks to address the questions that can only be answered by bridging the gaps among different disciplines.  Much of his research is based in community-based and participatory methodologies. In addition to his PhD in Geography from the University of Washington he also holds a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. For more than a decade, he practiced law in the areas of civil rights and complex litigation before entering academia.

Project Manager

Nicole Suniary is part of the Arts, Design and Architecture Faculty and works as a Faculty Operations Administrative Assistant at the University of New South Wales.  Through the (Daily) Delight~Disrupt project, she is able to gain more experience and knowledge and involve the wider community with the focus of a seven-day-a-week movement. This movement of existing ecoculture jams will be showcased through the project in hopes everyone can feel empowered to be part of a change and make steps towards being part of the solution. She is excited about this opportunity to learn and bring more awareness to the environment, where everyone can do their part and contribute to making a difference in this world. She is passionate about the (Daily) Delight~Disrupt project as it is an exciting and fun movement that brings everyone together. 

Lead Graphic Designer

Michael Donohue (MFA) is an award winning creative leader, working at the intersection of art, design and education where he is helping to shape the futures of the next generation of designers and creative thinkers.

Michael has extensive expertise in the spheres of design for cultural institutions, placemaking and publishing. He has received a multitude of awards including the Australian Graphic Design Association excellence in catalogue design and twice won the Australian Publishers Association Book Cover of the year. Michael was Head of Design at the Museum of Contemporary Art in sSydney for over five years and has held similar positions with The Australian Museum and the State Library of New South Wales.

Michael also has a wealth of knowledge in the placemaking/place activation arena, having written the brand/placemaking strategy for Sydney’s Darling Harbour, and the emerging 'aerotropolis' of Leppington. 

Michael also maintains an ongoing art practice and recently completed a residency with The Ethics Centre in Sydney and was part of the Desert Equinox exhibition in Broken Hill.

Valentina is a current student of Master's in Environmental Management at UNSW. Her path began in a lab coat, immersed in chemistry and chemical engineering in Santiago de Chile. Over time, her work with waterways became less about isolated chemical reactions and more about the intricate, living relationships between sky, land, water and community.

Her passion for understanding the intersections between different worldviews and places has inspired her to volunteer in different projects across diverse cultures, enriching her appreciation for the vital role of collective wisdom and diverse knowledge systems. She finds inspiration in the power of playfulness and intentionality - seeing impact as something that ripples outward, from the personal to the collective.

Val finds fulfillment in co-creation, weaving small, embodied actions into daily life to cultivate a culture of regeneration, reweaving and remembering with the people and places we love and care for. For her, (Daily) Delight~Disrupt is a way of being, a process of becoming and co-becoming together. It is a practice of paying attention, of learning with and from others, and of co-creating a world where care and collaboration are at the center.

Elena is a passionate advocate for regenerative change, currently pursuing a Master’s in Environmental Management at UNSW. With a background in biology, she blends scientific understanding with the art of effective communication and engagement - bridging the gap between knowledge and action to inspire positive behaviour change for our planet.

Having lived in eight cities across six countries and four continents, Elena has experienced firsthand the richness of diverse perspectives and ways of being. This global journey has taught her the power of listening, learning, and, more importantly, unlearning the social constructs that restrict our world so that a future may be created where both humans and non-humans can thrive together.

For Elena, (Daily) Delight~Disrupt is about creating small, playful disruptions that open people’s eyes to new possibilities - transforming the unthinkable into the thinkable. She has witnessed (and personally experienced) how a single moment of connection can shift perspectives, break routines, and ignite real change. In a time when regeneration is not just necessary but inevitable, Elena believes change should be as joyful as it is urgent.

Research Collaborator

Viviane Nguyen is a recent graduate of the Master of Environmental Management at UNSW, and a big fan of the program. Having pivoted from a biology and ethology background in Montreal, Canada, she describes the UNSW master’s program as a unique space to nurture passions for the more-than-human. Here, she was able to develop a lens through which she routinely examines and deconstructs worldly phenomena. Of particular interest are the awakening and growth of societal ecocultural identity, an important theory cultivated by Tema Milstein. Viviane has enthusiastically dived into examining the subconscious disassociation of the human self from its earthly surroundings in daily life, and how this detachment has founded the societal anthropocentric ways of being. With this new insight, she looked for all opportunities to delightfully disrupt the humancentric systematic status quo and apply learned theories toward sustainable worldmaking. The (Daily) Delight~Disrupt presented itself as an exciting, passion-driven initiative where she is flexing her newfound sustainability knowledge – she recognizes it as the best, beautiful way to scale ecocultural identity awakenings for real-world outcomes.