Childhood

Childhood, 2026 Cyanotype print on tea paper In Childhood, a baby rests in a coolamon surrounded by abundance, while the magpie’s outstretched wings evoke Country as provider and protector. Above, symbols of the colony gather, imposing themselves upon a world in which the child is already cared for, protected and belonging. The work challenges colonial assumptions that Blak childhood required intervention, protection or remaking. Before these imposed definitions, Blak children belonged within their own systems of kinship, care, knowledge, law and Country. Childhood asks us to see the child before state intervention: loved, connected and belonging. Their life and future were never the state’s to define.