Celebratory welcome reception for the opening of Koolanga Boodja Neh Nidjuuk (Children Listening and Looking on Country) at the Picker Art Gallery (Photo by Andrew Daddio)
In honor of Colgate’s Bicentennial year, the Picker Art Gallery is hosting a special traveling exhibition, Koolanga Boodja Neh Nidjuuk (Children Looking and Listening on Country), through June 30.
These works were selected from the Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artworks. Colgate repatriated the works in 2013 to the Noongar people of Australia, where they are cared for by the John Curtin Gallery at Curtin University in tandem with the Carrolup Elders Reference Group.
The paintings and drawings were created by Aboriginal children removed from their families and placed in the Carrolup Native Settlement, an institution administered by the government of Western Australia. These children, and others like them who were taken to similar institutions, both public and private, became known as the Stolen Generations.