We Were Just Little Boys photography exhibition

Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home was a state-run institution near Kempsey, NSW that operated from 1924 to 1970. Hundreds of Aboriginal boys forcibly removed from their families were sent here, severing their connection with families, culture and identity. Here, the boys’ names weren’t used. They were assigned a number.  

In We Were Just Little Boys, Noongar and Spinifex photographer Tace Stevens tells the story of the facility’s Survivors. Past and present. Lies and truth. Little boys and old men.  

The exhibition features black and white photographs of the boys that had been used as propaganda to show that Kinchela Boys Home was ‘turning out clean and healthy boys,’ as written by the Macleay Argus in 1943. 

Displayed alongside them are present-day portraits of the Survivors, as they revisit the former site of the Kinchela Boys Home. They share their story in the captions of the photographs, confronting the past and regaining their voice.  

This exhibition is on display to mark National Sorry Day on 26 May. National Sorry Day remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples torn from their families and communities, which we now know as the Stolen Generations.  

We Were Just Little Boys is commissioned by the Magnum Foundation and World Monuments Fund.  

© Tace Stevens for Magnum Foundation & World Monuments Fund. 

Tace Stevens: Instagram 

Kinchela Boys Home: Instagram