Journal no. 3

 went to the John Curtin Gallery to see the exhibition called Koolark Koort Koorliny (Heart Coming Home). 

these works were made by Aboriginal children who had no formal art training. they had been "forcibly removed from their parents and incarcerated at Carrolup in accordance with the Government’s policy of assimilation in the late 1940s". 
the school masters had encouraged them to go bush walking to draw what they saw. the works were displayed internationally.
however, the school was shut down in 1950 in order to prevent further exposure of the plight of the Aboriginal people to the world.


these landscape paintings hold a lot of emotion. the children who created them were part of the Stolen Generations. beautiful art could come out of terrible events - we can see the artefacts now, but still not know about the lives of the people who drew them.