*photography: >>photo essays: stories of the stolen generations, uluru: herbie's story

Herbie Langford was stolen from his family during the Depression and taken to a government institution on the site of the Alice Springs Telegraph station. Like Bob Randall and the 100 other children there, Herbie was always hungry. One day he picked carrots from the garden and ate them before re-planting the tops. He was discovered and made to stand on a fence post for many hours holding two stones as punishment. Each time his arms dropped with exhaustion he was flogged.

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These figurative sculptures depict childhood experiences recalled by members of the stolen generations* from Uluru, central Australia. Their stories were collected by Mutitjulu elder Bob Randall from his personal experience and that of his peers, and interpreted by sculptor Hazel MacKinnon. Each sculpture was photographed on location where the story originally occurred, spanning 500 km from Uluru to Alice Springs. This project was a collaboration between Bob Randall, Hazel MacKinnon and Kia Mistilis, aimed at promoting better community understanding of our shared Australian history.

*The term 'stolen generations' refers to Aboriginal Australian children who were forcibly removed from their families under national government policy. It is estimated that between 1910 and 1970, over 50 000 chidren were thus removed and placed in church or government institutions. They were often raised hundreds of kilometres from their tribal homelands, without further contact with their extended families and indigenous culture, including their tribal languages and lands.