Kanolu and Gungarri
Leigh Harris
Leigh is a Cairns-based Aboriginal business owner with traditional connections to the Kangulu people of Central Queensland and Gungarri people of South East Queensland, who is also proud of his Italian and Welsh heritage. As a well known diverse Aboriginal creative and digital designer with over 25 years in the industry, he has worked on some of the country's major design and creative projects. His knowledge spans design, code and film and has been selected as a finalist in photographic awards for his photography and has his images used by CNN, BBC and National Geographic.
Leigh owns and manages ingeous studios, a multidisciplinary design studio based in Cairns. Trained as a Public Relation Officer with Aboriginal Hostels Limited in Canberra in the late 1980’s, Leigh moved to Cairns in 1993. He worked throughout Cape York and the Torres Strait for 11 years as a Communications Officer with the Cape York Land Council before establishing ingeous studio.
In 2009, Leigh created Australia’s first Indigenous-developed app. More recently, he assisted Arrernte cultural advisors to create the Indigemoji app that has over 80,000 downloads. Leigh was a 2020 Webby Award Honoree and 2020 Prix Ars Electronica Honorary.
Leigh has worked tirelessly as an Indigenous business owner and creative. To share his knowledge and inspire Indigenous young people to get into the digital design and creative design industries, in 2019 Leigh partnered with NorthSite Contemporary Arts to establish IndigeDesignLabs.