Chips Mackinolty

Chips Mackinolty
(printed by Stan Whiting)

Kids on country, not in custody 2020
digital print on Ilford archival paper; A/P
Courtesy of artist

Artist statement:

When the Don Dale Royal Commission into children’s treatment in the Northern Territory jail system was released, two Gurindji women—Josie Crawshaw and Brenda Croft—commissioned a banner from me for the 50th anniversary of Gurindji Freedom Day at Kalkarindji in 2016. The banner, No justice, just us, has been used at events ever since.

With the ongoing refusal of all but one jurisdiction in Australia to stop children as young as 10 years old from being imprisoned, Kids on country, not in custody, has been a further, national response to the ongoing cruelty of the jailing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and consequent deaths in custody.

A footnote: in my visual truth telling since the 1970s I have—in both sorrow and anger—been obliged to use the image of barbed wire many times.