We were just little boys

Presented by the Centre for Contemporary Photography in partnership with Agency Projects and Tall Poppy Press.

Exhibition supported by Spicers Australia and HC Pro Printers.

Kinchela Boys Home was a NSW state-run institution in Kempsey, 4.5 hours north of Sydney, that operated from 1924 – 1970. Hundreds of Indigenous boys, who were forcibly removed from their families, were sent here. The purpose of this institution and others like it, was to assimilate Indigenous children into white society. The policies that allowed for this created what are today referred to as the Stolen Generations.

When these boys entered Kinchela, their relationship and connection with their families, culture and identity was severed, leaving a lifetime of trauma and pain. Psychological, physical, and sexual abuse by the staff was a common experience.

After Kinchela closed in 1970, it was re-purposed as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre that operated on the site between 1979 and 2017 when it shut its doors. The site has since been vacant, slowly eroding away. The site sits within a rich agricultural landscape; the Macleay River is literally just across the road. It’s hard to believe that such an idyllic scene contains an unimaginable amount of trauma and pain.

In 2023, Tace Stevens was commissioned by the Magnum Foundation and World Monuments Fund, to work with the Survivors of the Kinchela Aboriginals Boys Training Home (KBH), to create a body of work that shone a light on the site, and the truth.

This body of work, We Were Just Little Boys, is a series of juxtapositions. Lies and truth. Past and present. Little boys and old men. When the site was active, photos of the Kinchela Boys were constantly used as propaganda to show Australia that Kinchela was a good place and achieving what it had set out to do – “turning out clean and healthy boys, who will develop into useful citizens,” as written by the Macleay Argus in 1943.

The Uncles didn’t have any autonomy, voice, or power when they were at Kinchela. This body of work is a reclamation of their truth. People today have mixed information about the Stolen Generations. Some believe it didn’t happen, others think it was a good thing, while some believe it happened many generations ago. Within this series, the Uncles confront the camera, and by extension, us, to share their truth.

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Part of this project was exhibited at CCP in early 2024, as part of the group exhibition ‘Only the future revisits the past’. This is the first time this project has been shown in its entirety.

Tace was the winner of the Tall Poppy Press Open Call in 2024. The book ‘We were just little boys’, is available for sale at the exhibition.

The book features written contributions from surviving Uncles, and writing from the CEO of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation; the book is collaborative, grief-filled and advocates for the need for deep healing.