Who We Are
Our approach is about making space for stories, for knowledge, and for the quiet persistence of practices that continue despite change.
The Team
Our Story
Founders Erin McDonald and Troy Casey share a creative vision that invites broader audiences to engage with and deepen their appreciation of Aboriginal knowledges. After five years in traditional architectural practice, Erin met Troy, and together they recognised a shared commitment to cultural values and creating meaningful change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
This connection led Erin to Blaklash, where she helped grow the company and its design capability. Together, they focus on creating impact through collaboration, cultural integrity, and Country-centred design approaches. Through this work, a clear gap emerged in the market for Aboriginal-designed furniture, an opportunity to bring cultural integrity, story, and design authorship into objects and spaces that shape everyday life. With Erin's interior design background and knowledge, she leads the design direction of the company and collections.
Erin McDonald
MandandanjiCo-Founder & Design DirectorErin brings together her cultural identity and interior design practice to lead the creative direction of the company. Her design philosophy is grounded in a responsibility to care for Country and a belief in design as a powerful tool for cultural expression, connection, and impact. Elements extends this philosophy into furniture design, translating cultural knowledge, narrative, and material intelligence into contemporary form. It embeds cultural identity into the spaces we inhabit, ensuring design reflects place, story, and belonging. Through this lens, Erin’s work challenges conventional boundaries between object, space, and culture, positioning design as both practice and responsibility.
Troy Casey
KamilaroiCo-FounderTroy has spent his career embedding the priorities of Traditional Custodians into the built environment. Elements extends that work into furniture design - pieces grounded in Country, made to carry First Nations design into everyday spaces. This work is part of a wider commitment to economic self-determination, creating Aboriginal-owned enterprises that return value to the community and prove that cultural integrity and commercial ambition belong together.
Meet Our Designer
Tom SkeehanIndustrial DesignerTom Skeehan is an Australian industrial designer, educator, and founder of SKEEHAN Studio. With over 15 years of experience across furniture, product, and spatial design, his work focuses on creating objects that balance strong narrative, material honesty, and commercial viability through collaboration, craft, and manufacturing. His approach is grounded in process and partnership, with a strong emphasis on developing meaningful, long-term outcomes through design. Alongside his studio practice, Tom has lectured and mentored within industrial design and interior architecture programs across Australia, helping shape conversations around contemporary Australian design, manufacturing, and creative practice.
The studio collaborates with brands, manufacturers, architects, and cultural organisations to create refined, process-led outcomes grounded in material understanding, storytelling, and contemporary Australian manufacturing. The practice is known for balancing commercial viability with strong narrative and material clarity, often working at the intersection of culture, craft, manufacturing, and the built environment. Through long-term creative partnerships, SKEEHAN Studio delivers work that is thoughtful, enduring, and deeply connected to process.
Tom SkeehanSkeehan StudioCreative DirectorWorking with Erin and Troy has been an incredibly open and rewarding collaboration. There was a genuine level of trust throughout the process, which allowed us to ask questions, learn from one another, and create work that feels meaningful and honest. For me and my studio, this project represented a huge amount of personal and creative growth.