About
A shipping container. Three rooms. Thirty minutes. Built by Ben Knight and Nic Marchesi with young people carrying the first room, David from Diagrama helping hold the alternative, and local organisations building the room that shows what already works. The route starts with a Mount Druitt small gathering, then activates publicly in Adelaide on Kaurna Yarta.
The case
Australia detains around 860 children on any given night. 65% are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. They are 6% of the population.
Detention costs roughly $1.33 million per child per year, varying by state (ROGS 2024-25). 84% of children who go through detention return.
Community-led alternatives, where families and Elders carry decision-making, run for a fraction of the cost and produce diversion outcomes above 85% in the strongest cases. Oonchiumpa in Alice Springs / Central Australia runs at 95%.
The architects
Co-founder
Builds the data, story and place layers. Designed JusticeHub, Empathy Ledger, and the Australian Living Map of Alternatives. Spent 2024 inside Diagrama in Murcia and Madrid documenting the model the world is moving toward.
Co-founder
Co-founder of Orange Sky. Builds operating systems for the work. Holds the relationships at Palm Island Community Company, BG Fit, MMEIC, and across the network of community organisations the tour is built with.
A Curious Tractor is the working name for the studio Ben and Nic run together. It is small on purpose. The work moves at the speed of community, not the speed of institution.
The premise
The container is not a museum and it is not a press release. It is a third place where the conversation about youth justice can happen with everyone in the same room: a young person from Brisbane who helped build the first room, a magistrate from Adelaide, a Member of Parliament, a foundation officer, a journalist, a parent.
Every walk-through is led by a young person who has been through the system. They are paid for it. The expertise is the wage.
Mount Druitt gives the process a small first gathering. The Adelaide public activation gives Room 3 to local organisations speaking about their programs, what they cost, what evidence they hold, and what they need funded. Every stop rebuilds that room with the host community. The room stays in the year-end exhibition. The room becomes part of the public record.
Read the full structureWhere it sits
The data and publishing platform. Holds the Australian Living Map of Alternatives, 1,697 programs catalogued, 822 organisations indexed, 7,022 civic intelligence chunks searchable.
The consent and storytelling layer. Per-storyteller, withdrawable, OCAP-aligned. Every reflection journal from the container lives here on the storyteller's terms.
Spain's therapeutic-centre model. 13.6% recidivism, €5.64 social return per €1 invested. Room 2 is built in partnership.
The vision
The route starts with a small Mount Druitt gathering in May/June, then activates publicly in Adelaide on Kaurna Yarta, from 22-26 June 2026 beside Reintegration Puzzle. Brisbane young people carry the build story, David from Diagrama helps hold Room 2, and Adelaide organisations use Room 3 to put their programs in front of delegates, MPs, universities, and funders. The route remains flexible as communities and partners ask for it.
Mount Druitt. Adelaide. Perth + surrounds. Brisbane. Northern Rivers. Alice Springs / Central Australia. Sydney + Canberra. Victoria. Tasmania. One container. One travelling team of young facilitators. Nine partner organisations on the ground.
Mount Druitt is a smaller $20K gathering. Adelaide is a $50K public activation. Flexible stops range from $30K-$60K. The tour-wide backbone (travelling team, editorial, coordination, the year-end bound book) is $120K. Whole national arc: $500K.
“If we spent $1.33M a year on keeping a kid connected to family, culture, and community instead of locking them in a cell, we would already have the answer.”
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