Enquiries: lwag@uwa.edu.au or 08 6488 3707

In this talk, Carrolup Revisited curator and Berndt Museum Associate Director Vanessa Russ shares insights about curating the exhibition, the artists and stories associated with the artworks.

Carrolup, near Katanning, in Southwest Western Australia was a government-run ‘native settlement’ re-opened by the Department of Native Affairs in 1939 after having been closed for 17 years. By 1944, there were 129 boys, girls and older children in government ‘care’ at Carrolup. In 1951, the government withdrew most of the children from Carrolup and it was re-opened as a Marribank Farm School.

Today, this small group of children is remembered for their distinctive representational drawings in pastel made in the 1940s while at the Carrolup Native Settlement. The Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia is a caretaker for over 200 of these artworks.

Carrolup Revisited: A Journey through the South West of Western Australia

9 February - 29 June 2019

Carrolup Revisited: A Journey through the South West of Western Australia celebrates the artists well-known for their role in the Carrolup School of Art.

Today, this small group of children are remembered for their distinctive representational drawings in pastel. As members of the Stolen Generations, removed from their families and relocated to the Carrolup Native Settlement without warning, they lived in isolation from the world.

These small works on paper, speak to their strength and willingness to survive, and is a reminder of the fortitude of Aboriginal people in the harshest of circumstances to create and imagine new worlds.

Image: Cliff Ryder, Carrolup, Kangaroos on Road (detail), 1948, pastel on paper, 25 x 18 cm. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by E.S. Phillips and Dr G. Phillips, [1992/0101] © family of the artist.