Purpose Conference 2023
“Unity Web”
As the Wellbeing and Creative Partner of Purpose Conference, UnitePlayPerform was commissioned to create a suite of immersive works for Purpose Conference 2023 at Carriageworks, convening 1000+ delegates across business, government, and community leadership. The program explored regenerative systems, Indigenous entrepreneurship, technology ethics, and climate adaptation. UPP’s activations brought embodied art, First Nations knowledge, and ritual practice into the heart of a systems-change gathering.
UPP Universe Adaptive Hybrid Habitats
Values Driven End-To-End Delivery
We delivered this project through our structured framework that aligns UPP’s values with each phase of end-to-end project delivery. Each stage is embedded with the application of UPP Methodology, our values, principles, pillars, practices, and prompts to ensure strategic, regenerative, and relational impact.
We Served
Context & Alignment
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Each artwork was conceived as a living system, weaving Indigenous knowledge, somatic practice, and regenerative design. Unity Web, Extractive Force, and Boundary Makers emerged to disrupt passive spectatorship, activate embodied grief and repair, and reimagine conferences as ceremonial laboratories where legacy, movement, and collective imagination become cultural strategy.
The suite of works included:
Unity Web — a 4-metre collective weaving legacy project and audio artwork amplifying First Nations voices.
Extractive Force — a 10-minute grief rite performance that processed 1000 delegates into the main stage, culminating in an a cappella work by Melissa Gilbert.
Boundary Makers — a roaming performance disrupting habitual movement patterns within Carriageworks.
Meeting Halfway Panel — a heart-led conversation hosted by Melissa Gilbert with First Nations thought leaders.
Each work reimagined the conference not just as a site of intellectual exchange but as a living ritual space for connection, disruption, and repair.
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Commissioned by Purpose and supported by a City of Sydney grant, the program was conceptualised and curated by Melissa Gilbert (UnitePlayPerform). Collaborators included First Nations weavers and leaders: Warren Roberts (Yarn Australia), Tegan Murdock (Ngumpie Weaving), Amethyst Downing-McLeod (Ngardi Amethyst Design), and additional contributing weavers from across the country. First Nations consultant Coby Anne Edgar provided cultural guidance and critical framing.
This partnership positioned Indigenous practice, embodied pedagogy, and regenerative art as integral to the conference’s purpose-driven mission. UnitePlayPerform continues as an ongoing wellbeing and creative partner with Purpose Conference and Carriageworks, embedding regenerative methodologies and cultural repair into future convenings.
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This collaboration aligned UnitePlayPerform with Purpose’s vision to spark bold ideas and real-world action. By weaving First Nations knowledge, somatic practice, and immersive contemporary performance into a high-level convening, the project demonstrated how regenerative art can transform conferences into spaces of cultural repair and embodied systems change.
We Delivered
Creation & Process
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Across three days, UPP’s activations guided delegates through embodied thresholds. Unity Web invited tactile contribution and reflection, Extractive Force initiated the conference with a collective grief rite, Boundary Makers unsettled normative flows of movement, and the Meeting Halfway panel grounded dialogue in First Nations wisdom. Together, they transformed Carriageworks into a participatory cultural laboratory.
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The six-phase methodology structured the program:
DISARM — Unity Web entry rituals: seated listening with headphones, soft eye contact, First Nations voices.
DISRUPT — Boundary Makers: five performers shifting how delegates navigated shared space.
UNITE — Collective weaving of keepsakes and intentions into Unity Web.
PLAY — Prompts inviting delegates to mimic shapes of the web through gesture and conversation.
PERFORM — Extractive Force procession and Melissa Gilbert’s live a cappella performance across staircases, walkways, and stage, broadcast to the main hall.
TRANSFORM — Meeting Halfway panel, embedding new perspectives and commitments through Indigenous-led dialogue.
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The UnitePlayPerform methodology operated as the program’s structural spine, guiding design as an experiential journey across the six pillars of space, sense, movement, form, language, and energy.
Applied to Artists — First Nations weavers were supported to share their voices, stories, and cultural practices through ‘Unity Web’, combining traditional weaving knowledge with contemporary installation, audio, archtypes and colour systems.
Applied to Community — Delegates were guided through six experiential phases (Disarm → Transform) via prompts, keepsakes, and collective weaving, turning conference participation into an embodied legacy practice of contribution, dialogue, and play.
Applied to Performance — Works such as ‘Extractive Force’ and ‘Boundary Makers’ embodied the methodology in live form: disrupting movement, staging grief rites, and creating ceremonial thresholds for 1000+ delegates to move, feel, and witness together.
The methodology is held by a system of guardrails: colour theory, archetypes, Internal Family Systems, Polyvagal Theory, Pedagogical play, and Embodiment, ensuring the work remains adaptive, sensory, and regenerative.
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The UPP methodology informed every aspect of artwork design—form, colour, materials, and process and approaches. The method shaped Purpose Conference 2023 across artwork, experience design, and performance. Guided by space, sense, movement, form, language, and energy, projects wove ritual, weaving, and embodied play. Unity Web featured fibres and colours representing six of UPP’s twelve archetypes and values, weaving practices moving through each methodological stage toward grief, repair, and legacy.
We Activated
Impact & Legacy
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1 large-scale Unity Web legacy installation (4 metres wide) with audio storytelling and interactive participatory journey.
1 grief rite performance (Extractive Force) for 1000+ delegates, culminating in live a cappella by Melissa Gilbert. Including choreography, 5 performers, experience design and thematic exploration.
1 Original song by Melissa Gilbert
2 interactive roaming performance (Boundary Makers) with 5 performers
1 hosted panel (Meeting Halfway) with First Nations thought leaders
1000+ delegates engaged across three days
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Melissa is an exceptional First Nations cultural leader and founder of UnitePlayPerform and The Nest Creative Space, where her commitment to creativity, sustainability, and inclusivity has made a profound impact on the creative industries and broader community.
Melissa’s commissioned work for the Adapt NSW Government Forum 2024, addressing eco-grief, was a powerful exploration of climate-related emotional trauma or ‘Solastalgia’.
As a featured guest speaker, she designed and led an immersive program for social impact and climate leaders, demonstrating her expertise in creating thought-provoking, socially engaged art.
In 2023, Melissa also played a vital role as a wellbeing partner for the Purpose Conference, where she delivered the Unity Web Project, a First Nations interactive artwork and performance that brought together diverse perspectives on social healing. She curated and hosted a First Nations panel and contributed to a full calendar of immersive participatory art, performance works, and workshops, making her an integral part of the conference’s success.
In 2022, Melissa’s work with Purpose Conference was equally powerful, contributing immersive participatory art, workshops, and performance pieces that explored sustainability, leadership, and community-building.
Her contributions were pivotal in shaping the experience and fostering a deeper dialogue around the intersection of art and social change.
I am looking forward to seeing how she continues to foster collaboration and create opportunities for systemic change across industries and communities.
Sincerely,
Sally Hill
Founder and Director, Purpose Conference
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1000+ participants across activations
10,000 + Purpose Community members engaged with works internationally online.
4 commissioned works delivered at Carriageworks (Unity Web, Extractive Force, Boundary Makers, Meeting Halfway Panel)
12 First Nations facilitators employed for Unity Web
12 First Nations weavers engaged and commissioned for Unity Web
5 BIPOC and queer contemporary dancers commissioned for Extractive Force and Boundary Makers
3 First Nations thought leaders and cultural leaders curated for Meeting Halfway panel
4 First Nations leaders featured and amplified (collaborators)
All artworks created using natural fibres and sustainable materials
Supported by City of Sydney + Purpose
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Delegates described the works as “a profound pause within the intensity of the program” and “a healing counterpoint to systems-change discourse.” Extractive Force was repeatedly cited as one of the most impactful moments of the entire conference — a grief rite that interrupted the pace of presentations and ushered 1000 people into collective stillness, mourning, and reflection on ecological extraction. Many spoke of the a cappella finale as an unforgettable act of vulnerability and power, naming it a rare instance of shared grief in a business-focused convening.
Unity Web became a touchstone for legacy, contribution, and First Nations presence at Purpose, offering a living artwork where delegates could sit, listen, weave, and make visible their commitments. The installation was described as a “healing circle within a corporate setting,” amplifying the voices of First Nations weavers while demonstrating how art can function as a system for cultural repair.
Boundary Makers disrupted familiar flows of movement through Carriageworks, reminding participants that systems change also requires re-patterning the body in space. This subtle yet charged intervention created ripples of curiosity and awareness, sparking conversations about habit, control, and collective choreography.
The Meeting Halfway panel was acknowledged as a critical platform for First Nations thought leadership, bringing relational wisdom and lived experience into dialogue with global themes of regenerative systems and impact investing. Delegates emphasised its importance as a grounding counterbalance to the more abstract and technical sessions.
Together, these activations shifted the tone of Purpose 2023 modelling how regenerative art practice, First Nations leadership, and embodied methodologies can transform a high-level conference into a cultural laboratory of repair, imagination, and systemic change.
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The project set a new benchmark for embedding regenerative art and Indigenous knowledge in large-scale leadership convenings. It demonstrated that conferences can be ceremonial as well as strategic weaving embodied practice, cultural repair, and systems-change dialogue into one unified experience.
Exhibition
“Unity Web”
Unity Web was a four-metre First Nations weaving legacy project at seeded Purpose Conference 2023. Crafted from natural fibres and archetypal colours, and accompanied by audio storytelling from First Nations weavers, the installation invited 1000+ delegates, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to practise deep listening, yarn, weave, and contribute intentions to a collective field. Transforming Carriageworks’ prestigious foyer, Unity Web became a living architecture of legacy, interconnectedness, and cultural repair. This work was proudly supported by City of Sydney.
At Purpose 2023, the new work Unity Web, launched as a collective legacy artwork made by First Nations weavers from across ‘So called Australia’.
The artists/weavers included:
Karleen Green - Bunjalung, Mununjali, Kgari (Wonapinga Weaving)
Tegan Murdock - Barkindtji, Yorta Yorta(Ngumpie Weaving)
Amethyst Downing-McLeod - Wandi Wandian (Ngardi Amethyst Design)
Terase Kelly - Mirning, Kokatha, Kaurna, Narrunga (Minyamumma Weaving)
Nana Coral Foley - Boorloo, Ballardong/Whadjuk, Noongar, living in Boorloo Noongar Boodja (Culture Weave)
Nadine Foley - Boorloo, Ballardong/Whadjuk, Noongar, living in Boorloo Noongar Boodja (Culture Weave)
Kym Dobby - Wiilman Noongar, Boorloo/Perth
Melissa Gilbert - Descendant of the Mununjali Clan/Yugambeh with links to Quandamooka.
Unity Web harnesses the method and medicine of weaving circles globally and throughout time, creating a vital, embodied and organic space for people to connect, learn and share. In the context of Purpose Conference's hard truths, Unity Web is a space for healing.
This work is a legacy carrying on to be exhibited and activated with First Nations weavers facilitation. Unity Web was conceptualised, curated and facilitated by Melissa Gilbert.
Program
UnitePlayPerform’s program at Purpose Conference 2023 transformed Carriageworks into a living laboratory of systems change. Through Unity Web, Extractive Force, Boundary Makers, and the Meeting Halfway panel, 1000+ delegates moved beyond spectatorship into embodied participation — weaving, grieving, disrupting, and dialoguing.
Experiential practice guided participants collectively through unique parts of the building, designed to evoke collective potential and spark self-expression, joy, play, courage, compassion, activism, optimism, and exploration. Prompts and invitations urged delegates to find their edge, to practise the art of ceremony and communing, reshaping perspectives and tracing behaviours, patterns, and felt sense experiences through live, interactive encounters.
Performance
Extractive Force and Boundary Makers
Extractive Force and Boundary Makers redefined performance within a conference context. A grief rite procession with live a cappella by Melissa Gilbert and 5 contemporary dancers moved 1000 delegates into collective stillness, while five roaming performers disrupted habitual flows through Carriageworks. Together, they embodied disruption, vulnerability, and cultural repair within systems-change discourse.
Speaker
Keynote by Melissa Gilbert
Melissa Gilbert’s durational performances embodied UnitePlayPerform’s cyclical methodology, unfolding as three-hour live rituals of destruction and renewal. Museum voyeurs were swept into non-traditional formats as Gilbert responded directly to RMOA’s architecture. Through socially engaging gestures and sculptural morphologies, the gallery became a participatory site of endurance, imagination, and ceremonial repair.
Process
Behind the Scenes
Build and Destroy was developed through a methodology of abstraction: circumambulatory sketches, elemental correspondences, and directional mapping structured the exhibition’s spatial logic. Non-traditional sites staircases, lifts, thresholds were inscribed as performative zones. Across five weeks, the orchestration of soft sculptures reconstituted RMOA’s architecture into a multi-layered choreography of embodied movement, ritual, and encounter.
Media
Partners
