To view the breadth of our services, please search our projects via the map below. You can search by type of project or location (LGA).
Location marks on the map are approximate. Projects involving Aboriginal archaeology and Aboriginal cultural heritage are not included in this map for cultural sensitivity reasons, but we have listed some of the Local Aboriginal Land Councils we have worked in.
Our interactive map allows you to search the type of project or locations where Artefact have worked.
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When you partner with Artefact, you’ll receive timely and accurate advice on how to integrate archaeology, heritage and environmental considerations into your project plans.
Artefact includes specialists across key fields of archaeology, heritage, environment, interpretation, architecture and history. More importantly, with 50 staff we can assemble a skilled in-house team targeted to your specific requirements.
HISTORICAL HERITAGE
As highly experienced project leaders, Artefact has been lead consultant on many major projects. Our planning and management systems ensure that projects are completed in a timely, professional manner, working in partnership with our clients.
Since 2010 Artefact is proud to have worked on a diverse range of large and small-scale infrastructure and development projects.
During this time we have built-up extensive experience in a variety of sectors including rail, roads, power and renewables, health, greenfields development and urban renewal.
Some of the more well-known projects we've been involved with include: Central Station Metro; Parramatta Light Rail; Sydney Metro City & Southwest; Wickham Transport Interchange; Northern Beaches Hospital; St Vincent’s Private Hospital; Concord Forensic Mental Health Unit; Sydney Harbour Bridge; The Northern Road Stages 1 & 2; Berry to Bomaderry Upgrade (Princes Highway); West Wyalong Solar Farm; and Wind Farm and Transmission Line projects in the Pilbara and Western NSW.
With almost 50 staff, and offices in Sydney and Newcastle, we can assemble a skilled in-house team targeted to your specific requirements.
For a personal response to your heritage and environment needs, please ask how we can tailor an integrated solution to suit your plans, your timeline and your budget.
Artefact have worked on almost all major rail infrastructure developments in NSW over the past decade.
Our proudest achievement is our team. We value their skills and talents, and we trust that you will too.
At Artefact we recruit staff who are passionate about the past, skilled in their disciplines and professional in their approach. We all understand the need to balance our rich local heritage with plans that shape the State’s future. These attributes contribute to a great team culture internally – and to exceptional advice and service for you. We support each other to make sure that our clients come first, which is why we have an industry-wide reputation for being responsive, innovative and authoritative.
SANDRA WALLACE, MANAGING DIRECTOR
Artefact was established in 2010 by Dr Sandra Wallace, who remains the company’s Managing Director.
What ever your heritage project we are here to assist.
Country or city, desktop or fieldwork, we’ve covered most of New South Wales and ACT.
Our advice and services are customised to offer the best guidance on how you can proceed, whatever your project type.
We consult right across the scale from neighbourhood architectural practices to multinational developers. But don't take our word for it! Check out our testimonials from our clients.
Artefact is a female-led company, was that by design or did it happen organically?
It wasn’t necessarily by design…. When I’m growing the business, I’m really focusing on finding people who fit with a certain ethos and culture. Artefact is more a purpose-driven company – where we tend to prioritise social and environmental positions over hard-core business KPIs and aggressive growth. In some ways I think being purpose-driven suits female leadership a bit better.
One of the key focus areas for International Women’s Day this year is this idea of ‘shifting to a green economy and care society’. That’s something that really interests me not only as it applies to the cultural heritage and environment sector but also more broadly. The current system disproportionately affects women and marginalised groups in a negative way. But if we move towards a green and caring economic system it may really amplify women’s voices. That’s a nice thought anyway!
A lot of injustice and marginalisation is connected - you can’t completely separate sexism and racism, and you can’t separate things where the same overarching social structures or political perspectives disadvantage certain people in society. It’s all connected and in changing one that has ramifications for the other. You’re not green because you’re female or you care more because you’re female, but I think it’s recognising what social structures we work within and dismantling them and at that point it’s going to impact other issues positively.
With Artefact, I suppose we have become a female-led company through both situational reasons as well as by design. We have really focused on promoting female archaeologists and heritage consultants from within the company and supporting their leadership growth. Being a female, sometimes there’s a challenge to get past the invisible barrier in your mind - that you can’t be in charge, or you can’t be a leader, or you're not good enough - so we’ve tried to promote from within and developed a really strong female leadership team.
"If we move towards a green and caring economic system it may really amplify women’s voices."
I remember when I first started the company I felt like such an imposter, especially when managing others. I still do sometimes. I found it so hard to be the boss and take charge. It’s not something I’d ever been encouraged to do as the only girl in my family, or that I had ever been comfortable with as an adult. It’s been a massive learning curve shedding the belief systems that say, don’t speak up, don’t cause a fuss. Because that’s pretty much your whole job as a leader!
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced personally as a female founder and managing director?
A lot of the clients we work with are male-dominated construction and engineering companies. The Artefact team - and the heritage industry more broadly - tends to be more female. I’ve had some experiences over the years that have reinforced to me that there are inequalities out there – power imbalances do exist.
One particularly time I was in a meeting and an older male client referred to me as ‘girlie’ – I think his words were ‘what do you think about that girlie?’ And I think that’s really denigrating - I run a company, I’ve got a PHD, I have reasonable standing in the industry but to be called ‘girlie’ in front of everyone in a meeting was a real shock. For a moment I thought I’ll just let it go as this guy is a client and we want the business, but I’d actually taken along a female junior from the team so I actually stood up and called him out on it. It was a big moment because I knew me pushing back would embarrass him in front of his team but I just couldn’t really stand by with the junior team member at the table and let that happen. So that type of thing is out there. And look it probably wasn’t said in a way that was malicious but you know that makes it worse to be honest.
"So I stood up and called him out on it - it was a big moment."
There’s lots of documented evidence of women in meetings that are dominated by men and not having much of a voice. I mean men are used to speaking out more and that’s part of how we were brought up. That was quite a few years ago so I hope it’s not the case now.
Image: Sandra outside Customs House in Newcastle.
What are some of the challenges you’ve seen more broadly that female business leaders might face?
I could probably break down my challenges into three areas that I guess could be similar for most women: gendered commitments; way of being; and inertial sexism.
So gendered commitments are the things that women need to do in their lives that men don’t. This is particularly around family, around emotional labour, around unpaid domestic labour. In certain households hopefully it’s not the case but there is still a vast majority of women who are carrying the burden of gendered commitments. This was something I felt acutely when I had a baby and at the same time was managing a growing business. My son was born at 29 weeks - after a tough pregnancy – and was in hospital for the first 50 nights of his life. So it was a really challenging and traumatic time.
The thing is I had a really supportive but small team at the time (around 10 back then) and my partner was on-hand to help but I really felt that my gendered commitments were amplified because as the mother of a child who was vulnerable and needed extra help, a lot of that fell directly onto me - it’s just the way society feeds you into the role of motherhood and the expectations set around what you need to do to be a good mother.
"There was a business impact and financial cost of me having a baby - you can’t fully focus on your family and fully focus on your work."
As a mother I had both a physical and emotional load to carry along with the added pressures of running a business. And look it was totally my choice to have a child but there is also a ramification, that’s not always recognised, for women who sometimes don’t have the choice to take maternity leave which was the position I was in since I was managing a company.
From a business point of view it was also interesting to reflect on. Before I had a child Artefact was growing and growing but as I was trying to balance his needs and the businesses needs the revenue really suffered that year. So, there was kind of like a business impact and financial cost of me having a baby even though my partner was also in the business at the time - it’s really hard to be both things - you can’t fully focus on your family and fully focus on your work. Doesn’t mean you can’t do both, but there is a weird middle ground where as a mother and a business owner you feel like you are failing at both.
Image: Sandra with her newborn son.
Way of Being
Way of being is something a little more intangible. The way you’re brought up as a female there are things that you are consciously or subconsciously told as a girl – like ‘don’t get in the way’, ‘don’t speak up’, or you must ‘help people’. When you’re an adult those messages can have a real impact when you want to own and manage a business. Your ‘way of being’ as a woman is diametrically opposed to the ideal way of being as a corporate leader and there’s a tension in that.
But there’s opportunity in that as well - to turn around those templates of being a corporate leader, to better match with the ‘way of being’ a woman. My leadership style is very open. Compared to a so called 'alpha male' approach I think there’s more space for collaboration and learning in my style of leadership. I like people to make their own way, with support, but I don’t want to direct them too much in how to achieve their goal. I think it’s important people have space to be themselves and not to be told how to be in their role.
"Your way of being as a woman is diametrically opposed to the ideal way of being as a corporate leader."
I also think that I’m probably a little more ethically militant because of being through some of the experiences I’ve felt as a female in business. So now when I see something that doesn’t reflect the truth or is unjust or isn’t right I call it out - and that’s really important to me. I do this with projects as well as well as interactions with clients or the team.
Image: Sandra and Clinton Jurd on a site visit in Bringelly in 2012 for The Northern Road project.
Inertial Sexism
The third thing I see as a challenge is inertial sexism.
There’s an inertial sexism that exists in society even though it appears to have gotten better over the years it's still inherent.
Nowadays women have more opportunities, and there’s less disparity in wages, but despite improvements there’s still noticeable inertial sexism and inequalities that are left over from the past and embedded in the existing social and economic system. There are still some parts of society who think that women should be a certain way. So there’s an old guard, there’s an old way of thinking and there’s some inertia that’s still feeding through into the workplace. So I push back on that. And for some, I think there’s a fear of upsetting people or affecting your client relationship. But I think it’s completely reasonable and brave and something worth doing. You always call it out. It’s like racism. You don’t want to just let sexism hang there.
"Despite improvements there’s still noticeable inequalities left over from the past."
It's also fighting against an unjust wider social and economic system that has interests to maintain some of the inertia when it comes to misogyny. You just need to be aware and ask questions. Why are things this way? Because they often don’t have to be.
Image: Sandra with Jenny Winnett (left) and Kristen Tola (right) outside Artefact's office in the Hunter Region.
How do you see the future for women leaders in business?
In all challenges I see opportunities, and one of the key areas I’m seeing in businesses right now is this shift towards a purpose-driven approach. Part of this is recognising inequality and accounting for it in your business decisions and your strategies. It might be a motivation to use business profits to drive positive social change. As a business owner you can’t just say ‘society is over here and business is over there’ and see them in parallel because I don’t think that’s the truth. I think you have to be more purposeful in order to call stuff out, you have to create opportunities for those who are marginalised, you have to use some of your profits for good. So there’s an opportunity here for women leaders to really use the concept of a purpose-driven company to make a real impact.
I try to do that at Artefact as much as possible. We want to support a sustainable future and we think that coal mining is not the way to go – so we’ve never taken on coal mining projects. We’ve also developed an in-house employment program that seeks to hand back control of Aboriginal heritage to Aboriginal people. There are also less tangible things. I’ve tried to foster a certain mindset in the business that is progressive, that points to a more inclusive and respectful society, and I think that filters down through the team.
Obviously, there’s a lot more we can do but I see the female leaders at Artefact taking a key role in that and that’s exciting.
"The business world is increasingly recognising the value of female leadership. Although the ratio of female CEOs hasn’t climbed as much as it should have in response. My view is that ‘leaning in’ in the Sheryl Sandberg sense isn’t necessarily the best approach. Embracing the experience of being a woman and using that to supercharge leadership is more effective."
Image: Artefact's female employees at the office in Pyrmont.
What’s your advice for young women starting in the industry?
Know your history….. I mean this in every sense, not just from a professional perspective, but understand feminist history, read the discussion and debates and be armed with the struggles and wins of the past.
It's easy to forget that we have come a long way very quickly as women. My mother quit university at 21 to be married and have kids and didn’t work until her late 40s. After her divorce she struggled to look after three kids and get through a social work degree while cleaning offices and hotels at night. She made it in the end and had the career she should have had earlier. But it's also easy to ignore that there are fundamental drivers of inequality that haven’t changed, they are just better hidden, have more momentum and are therefore less actionable.
Despite the challenges it's definitely possible to succeed as a woman. But it is harder when you have gendered commitments and the other barriers that we’ve talked about here. And I think it’s really important to acknowledge these difficulties and challenges.
"My advice for young women starting in the sector is know your history and don’t take shit!"
So, my advice to young women starting in the sector is ‘don’t take shit!’ It’s OK to call out sexism for what it is and escalate it up the line and not feel like you’re making a big deal out of it. There is a great opportunity for positive change and it's important that we all back this and make it happen.
Image: Artefact Archaeologists HollyMae Steane Price and Steph Moore in Sydney Yard at Central Station.
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