"Youngster" Memorial Plaque for Children in Immigration Detention

In May 2015, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Nick Galvin reported a mysterious plaque that had appeared on a Sydney wall. The plaque, on the corner of George and Barrack sts in Sydney's CBD, turns Caroline Rothwell's whimsical sculpture "Youngster" into a memorial for refugee children.
Drawing on language that Australians would have been very familiar with from the ANZAC centenary celebrations just a month before, the plaque begins, "Lest We forget Them."

It continues:

Children seeking asylum in Australia are kept in detention as part of a government policy which inflictc harm on refugees fleeing violence and persecution.
Their suffering is our shame.
Here at this site we remember them and together call out for change. 

The plaque is very small and barely noticeable, yet it is a strong call to all those who pass by the busy corner to call to mind children held in Australia's detention centre. It was installed in the wake of a damning report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, Forgotten Children, released at the end of 2014.  The report's title echoes the 2004 Forgotten Australians Report into the treatment of Australian children in state care.
The sculpture the plaque has attached itself to is a small bronze sculpture of a young person in a hoodie. It stands at about chest height for most adults: a very small person covered by too-big-for-it clothes. Artist Caroline Rothwell was quoted as saying she was honoured her sculpture was being used in this way.
"I agree with the sentiment. Also part of my idea with the work is that these little hooded figures we generally see as a threatening form are actually vulnerable."
The building on which the plaque was attached is owned by the City of Sydney and leased by luxury clothing brand Burberry. So far, the plaque has been allowed to remain.

Questions:

If you know of anyone who was involved in the creation of this plaque, I would love to hear from them. Email ali.phd.map@gmail.com

Colebrook Reconciliation Park, Eden Hills, South Australia

The suburb of Eden Hills, located on the edge of the Adelaide Hills, is now a busy urban area, with few remaining areas of natural bushland. However, in 1944, when the Colebrook Home for Aboriginal Children moved there from Quorn, one of the reasons this site was chosen was its remoteness from the city. This was as close to ‘civilisation’ as a home for Aboriginal children was to be allowed.
The bush block on which Colebrook was built is now mostly empty of buildings, and instead is covered in original and recovering bush vegetation, a 'dancing circle', a shed and toilet. The site of the old 'home' has been reclaimed as the Colebrook Reconciliation Park. This is probably the biggest and most significant Stolen Generations memorials in Australia - so this will be quite a long post as I try and do it justice.

The Reconciliation Park is located on Shepherd's Hill Road, next to the Karinya Rotary Reserve. For commuters driving through the surburb, its most visible part would be the mural painted by Kunyi McInerny in the mid 2000s. The mural tells the story of children from both the riverlands and the inland APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) lands, where Kunyi herself was from, being brought to Colebrook. It tells this story truthfully but also with a sense of hope. To the left it reads,

“We cannot forget the past, but we can come together and unite as one, in friendship and forgiveness, and honouring each others culture.”
Although she was not a resident of Colebrook herself, Kunyi had sisters in the home, and is a member of the Tji Tji Tjuta group, meaning "all the children". Along with this group of ex-residents, the other group involved with and responsible for the Reconciliation Park is the Blackwood Reconciliation Group, a grassroots community organisation that grew out of a study program in the early 1990s as part of the Australian Government’s decade-long focus on Reconciliation which was funded 1991-2001.

For visitors who leave the road and pull into the small carpark, the main memorial area is a peaceful park area where the natural bush has partly re-grown and a few more established trees provide shade. Pathways are punctuated by large boulders and two simple seats. Some of the larger boulders contain plaques with various dates, often around or just after 26 May, the date the Bringing Them Home report was tabled in Parliament, which has come to be known as "Sorry Day" and marks the beginning of Reconciliation Week.
The first plaque is dated 1997 and was unveiled by former resident Prof Lowitja O'Donahue just days after the tabling of the Bringing Them Home Report. A community barbeque planned as a reunion events for a few hundred ex-residents and community members drew a crowd of around 2,000 over the course of the day, and a hastily passed around bucket became the start of the funding for the two formal memorials onsite, both created local artist Silvio Apponyi.

The "Fountain of Tears" was installed in 1998. Water bubbles out of the fountain onto an empty coolamon, a traditional bowl-like tool often used to carry babies. The water then runs down over faces carved into the granite surface of the memorial before collecting in a small pond at the bottom. The models for these faces were ex-residents of Colebrook, but as adults they also represent the faces of the people left behind in the communities from which children were taken.
In 1998, a bronze statue was installed. This sculpture is called the “Weeping Mother” and represents all the mothers of the children who were taken to Colebrook. Although the sculpture is of a woman staring down at her empty hands, she is rarely found without something in those hands, as
people bring flowers or beads as a mark of respect.
There are also a number of plaques on rocks around the pathways the crisscross the park. One of these plaques honours two women who were in charge of the Home in the early days, and also shows a composite image of some of the ex-residents as children. Writing in her autobiography, Kick the Tin, Doris Kartinyeri says they are “just like the pictures in my house" – photos of our brothers and sisters from the home.
An important part of the development of the Reconciliation Park has been reclaiming this space as a positive place for ex-residence and the community. Many residents of Colebrook suffered abuse and neglect, on top of the pain of being removed from their families and communities, and re-claiming the space has allowed them to return and to remember the bad but also the good times they shared growing up. A short way away from the memorial
space is a fire pit surrounded by rocks and wooden seats to form a story circle. The Blackwood Reconciliation Group still meets here in good weather, and students from Flinders University are regularly brought to hear the stories, passing on the history to another generation. In 2014, local high school students completed an art project to decorate the shed which can be used for shelter.
Colebrook is different from many other memorials sites, because it is not one single memorial, but a site layered with acts of remembrance from 1997 right up to the present. The reason for these memorials has changed over time. As the remaining original residents have aged and many have died, the focus has shifted from acknowledgement and mourning for residents to advocacy and education for future generations.

Forgotten Australians Memorial, Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney

The Australian Federal Government provided $100,000 in funding for memorials to acknowledge the Forgotten Australians. Divided among the different states, this amounted to $16,666 each. The NSW State Government chose to place this plaque at the Twin Ponds site of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, turning the area into a quiet, reflective space where people can come to remember and acknowledge the experiences of people who spent their childhood in State care.
That is one interpretation. The other is that the memorial is hidden away, continuing a tradition of marginalising this aspect of Australia's history.
The memorial plaque reads:

For Forgotten Australians In this place, we remember the many thousands of NSW children who grew up in care in the decades leading up to the 1990s – in orphanages, in Children’s Homes and foster homes, in institutions. We remember the lonely, the frightened, the lost, the abused – those who never knew the joy of a loving family, who suffered too often at the hands of a system meant to provide for their safety and wellbeing. We rejoice in their courage and strength. This corner of the Gardens is dedicated to their memory.Erected by the Australian and NSW Governments19 September 2009

Child Migrants Memorial, Melbourne Migration Museum, Victoria

A welsh love seat in the garden of the Victorian Migration Museum is a memorial for child migrants who were sent to Australia as part of child migration schemes during the twentieth century.

The design of the seat, made of Australian timber by Damien Wright, allows two people to sit almost side by side but facing in opposite directions. As well as referencing the heritage of some of those who were sent to Australia, the seat perhaps suggests the split in identity experienced by some child migrants, some of whom still do not know their full history.

A plaque embedded in the paving around the set reads:

This memorial is dedicated to thousands of innocent children removed from their families and loved ones and sent to Australia between 1912 and 1972 under the British and Commonwealth Child Migration Schemes. 
Funding for this memorial provided by the Australian Government. 

The funding came in the wake of the 2001 Australian Senate Report, known as the “Lost Innocents”,  which recommended memorials as a sign of acknowledgement by the Australian government of its role in the child migration schemes and acknowledgement of the contribution child migrants have made to Australian society.  However, neither the plaque not the love seat itself does much to tell this story to visitors without background knowledge.

The Migration Museum is located near Melbourne's Flinders St Station, and just  over the road from one of the bridges leading acrosss the Yarra River to the popular Southbank, where a memorial to Forgotten Australians is located.

Despite the busy location, the love seat courtyard is quite secluded. This could be a good thing for child migrants or their families who might want to spend some quiet time there. On the other hand, it also means the memorial is not well known.

Coming and Going Child Migrants Memorial, Sydney

"Coming and Going" by Sydney sculptor Sasha Reid,  is a playful aluminium cut-out, like a paper chain that sits on a section of grass near the entrance to the National Maritime Museum. It is close to a circular driveway used by buses, and is visible from Murray Street. The area is reportedly used as a meeting place for school groups, but it is certainly not a prominent location.

This memorial was installed by the NSW State Government (with funding from the Australian Government) to acknowledge the experience of children who were sent to Australia from the UK and Malta during the 20th Century. Often the children were given inaccurate information about their birth families (including being told parents were dead when they were not) and many suffered various forms of institutional abuse.

The memorial plaque reads: 

This memorial is dedicated to child migrants from the United Kingdom and Malta who had to leave their families and country of birth during the years 1912 - 1967. After arriving by ship, these children faced an unknown future in New South Wales. Many endured personal hardships, some experienced great suffering. They and their families have made and continue to make a valuable contribution to their communities and to Australia. 

"Coming and Going" is similar to Judith Forrest's "Unfolding Lives" sculpture in Perth, which acknowledges Forgotten Australians, in that it references a childhood toy that might have been available to children with little else. But apart from the words on the small plaque, there is nothing to disrupt the sense of fun. So for many people who see it in passing, it is just another piece of playful public art. This seems strange for a sculptor who has experience in creating memorial art; Sasha Reid was also responsible for the memorial to victims of the Bali bombings at Coogee, NSW. 

The memorial is located near the 'Welcome Wall' which leads down to the harbour. The Welcome Wall was created as a way to acknowledge people who have migrated to Australia. Like the wall, and despite the title of the sculpture, which suggests movement, this memorial seems to be more focussed on marking the arrival of the child migrants than on telling the story of before or after.

Questions:

I wonder what brief the artist was given? Were they asked to acknowledge the pain and suffering caused by child migration, or simply to create something relating to 'childhood'? 

Child Migrants Memorial, Fremantle, Western Australia

The Western Australian memorial to former child migrants is located near the entry of the Maritime Museum, between two areas of 'Welcome Walls' on which the names of many of those who have migrated to Australia through the port of Fremantle are listed.

The memorial takes the form of a figurative sculpture by Joan Walsh Smith and Charles Smith, depicting two young children, a boy and a girl, standing with their suitcases near the edge of the warf. A statement by former WA Community Development Minister Sheila McHale says the expression on the children's faces is of "awe and wonder"; however, conversations with former child migrants suggest to me that their feelings were much more mixed, and included (well founded) fear and apprehension.

The location is significant, because this is close to the place where many of the migrants would actually have arrived in Australia. The proximity to the Welcome Walls is also important, as it raises the profile of child migrants within all the other groups of migrants arriving in Australia. Some former child migrants have their names listed on the walls, but the walls do not tell their story in any way that distinguishes it from other more willing arrivals.

Although more recent memorials seem to be moving away from using figurative sculpture, the former child migrants themselves seem to appreciate it, at least in this particular example. One former migrant told me she felt able to identify with the sculpture, and that the girl's expression captures her feelings on arrival.

Like other memorials to child migrants, the funding for this memorial was a response to the "Lost Innocents" report of the Australian Senate Inquiry in 2001. The report recommended Government funding for memorials; however, the emphasis was on acknowledging the contribution migrants have made to Australia, rather than acknowledging any suffering caused by the migrations schemes that saw over 3,200 unaccompanied children sent to Australia during the 20th century.

A child migrants committee was involved in the memorial selection process, and submitted a number of suggestions for appropriate plaques that included poetry by former migrants themselves. However, a more prosaic form of words was eventually agreed. Two plaques lie side by side, one of which contains the dedication of the memorial, the other details of the artists.
The text on the acknowledgement plaque reads:

This memorial is jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Western Australian Governments and is dedicated to the British and Maltese boys and girls who left their homelands to brave an unknown future in Western Australia. Hardships were endured, benefits were derived. These child migrants provided valuable contributions to Australian society in diverse ways as parents, workers and citizens. Australia is better for their coming.

Hay Girls' Institute Memorial Plaque and Rose Garden

In a small rose garden at the back of the old Hay Gaol heritage museum sits a simple plaque which reads:

Dedicated to the girls aged 13-18 years of age who were incarcerated here 1961-1974 by the NSW Department of Child Welfare. Hay Girls Reunion 3-4 March 2007 Forgotten Australians “Let no child walk this path again”

Visitors to the Gaol might come here for a variety of reasons. The rural NSW town of Hay stands at the crossroads of the Sturt, Cobb and Mid-Western Highways, about half way between Adelaide and Sydney by road, near the edge of a wide flat plain known as the 'long paddock'. With five museums (one for every 715 residents), Hay boasts an abundance of heritage. One of the five, the Hay Gaol serves as a general purpose local history museum, displaying artefacts from various periods of the town's history, as well as telling its own story as, at various times, gaol, maternity hospital, insane asylum, prisoner of war detention centre and, during the 1960s and early 1970s, the Hay Institute for Girls. In a room near the gaol's entrance a patchwork quilt is printed with images and text explaining these various histories.

The Institute was prison for teenage girls, who had usually already spent time at the Parramatta Girls Institute in Sydney. Typed documentation displayed in the museum entrance explains how the girls were transported in windowless van, even though the railway went right up to the town, in order to disorient them.  This was just the beginning of a process designed to break their spirit. Some say they have never recovered.
On arrival, the girls were stripped and showered before being take to a freshly painted cell, where they spent their first ten days scrubbing away the paint. The documentation explains where this cell was located and directs visitors to pay attention to the multiple bolts on the door. However, the cell itself is now filled with telecommunications equipment as part of the museum's main display.
Other cells are similarly filled with local historical materials, each with a different theme, such as clothing, music or military equipment. Two cells toward the end of the gaol corridor are configured as they would have been used: one showing prisoner of war memorabilia from the Second World War and telling the story of the Gaol's only escapee, the other set up as it was used during the time of the Girls' Institute. This cell has an audio recording of an ABC radio documentary available by pushing a button. The recording tells how the threat of Hay was used to control girls at Parramatta, and how at least one girl was sent there as a punishment for attempting to speak out about sexual assault by Parramatta guards.

The other room that remains as it would have been during the time of the Girls' Institute is the isolation cell, which is at the end of a pathway separated physically from the rest of the building.

In between these two cells, the rose garden is planted along the back of the building, near and area used by community groups for craft and other activities. As the plaque says, the memorial was created in 2007 when a reunion was held at Hay for a group of former inmates.

Questions:

• Who is the rose garden for? Is the memorial for the ex-prisoners or as a reminder to visitors?
• Why is it important to put physical markers at places of pain and trauma? 
• Would the memorial make sense without the other parts of the museum, such as the cell and the written signage? 

Bomaderry Stolen Generations Memorial

This particular memorial is located on land now owned by the Nowra Aboriginal Land Council. I have no photos on the blog, because when I visited the site at the beginning of January 2014, there was no-one available to give me permission to enter the land or take photographs*.

The land on which this memorial sits was previously the Bomaderry Children's Home, run by the United Aboriginal Mission. It was opened in May 1908, and for some people this marks the start of the Stolen Generations in NSW, as it was one of the first, if not the first, home where Aboriginal children were sent after being taken from their families. Bomaderry specialised in small children, up to the age of ten. They were not allowed visitors and were not permitted to speak in any language other than English. The home did not close until 1988.

Bomaderry is a small town two hours south of Sydney, NSW, on the other side of the Shoalhaven River to Nowra. The train line that runs down the coast to Nowra actually stops in Bomaderry. The land on which the Home was situated is opposite the TAFE Illawara, just off the Princes Highway. The land is heritage listed, and some of the original buildings still exist on site.

The original memorial is located at the back corner of the property, near the Brinawarr St entrance. The project was instigated by Aboriginal leader Uncle Sonny Simms and the memorial was dedicated in 2001. It consists of a circular formal rose garden with an inner circle containing two flagpoles for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, kangeroo paw plants. Concrete tiles with imprints of feet lead towards and away from the plaque, which reads:

This plaque and memorial garden is dedicated to “all” the Aboriginal children of the “Stolen Generation” who were resident here at Bomaderry, the former “United Aborigines Mission” (U.A.M.). Also to honour and respect the children who are now deceased. This site is the birthplace of the “Stolen Generation” here in New South Wales.

A second plaque was installed later to mark the 100 year anniversary 2008.

Since 2011, a project has developed in partnership with TAFE Illawarra to extend the memorial site into a Stolen Generations Memorial Garden. The garden leads away from the earlier memorial along the edge of the property, using native plants and rocks to create a tranquil space. The project has been led by Jason Groves and Uncle Noel Butler, who is an Aboriginal elder and a teacher at the TAFE. At the time of my visit, the project did not seem to be fully completed, but media reports suggest that the idea is for students to graduate with Certificate II and III in land management as well as developing cultural knowledge. The style of this section of garden has a more 'natural' feel, although both part of the memorial involve paths that take those visiting them on a physical journey.

* The memorial is visible from the path, which is how I can describe it here.

Unfolding Lives memorial to the Forgotten Australians

The "Unfolding Lives" memorial is located in the Perth cultural centre, outside the WA Museum.

This art work was commissioned by the Federal and State (WA) governments to serve as a memorial to the lost childhood of the group of people known as the Forgotten Australians; people who suffered abuse and/or neglect within Australia’s state care institutions during the 20th century. This story is an important part of Australian’s history—some of those abused were child migrants sent from England supposedly for a ‘better life’. Others were Aboriginal children taken from their parents as part of what we now call the Stolen Generations.

The commission was organised by respected public art curator Andra Kins’s Urban Thresholds consultancy and designed by artist Judith Forest in collaboration with writer Terri-ann White. The form of the sculpture relates to its meaning as a memorial to lost childhood; it is in the shape of a ‘chatterbox’, a simple children’s game using folded paper and text.

The chatterbox and two accompanying metal tiles contain fragments of stories or testimony from Redress WA, a WA State Government initiative whereby survivors were able to apply for small ex-gratia payments and receive an apology from the State Government.

The commissioning of the memorial followed the WA Redress program, and a National Apology to the Forgotten Australians in 2009. It was dedicated in December 2010. A plaque identifies both State and Federal Governments as having commissioned the sculpture and explains that it is designed to serve as a reminder to policy makers of the importance of caring for children.

Survivors, including the Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) welcomed the memorial. One survivor, who was part of the memorial project committee, is quoted as saying, “This memorial is for healing. It’s gentle and yet it’s powerful. I just love it.”

Yet, at the same time as the memorial commission was going ahead, there was controversy about the Redress WA process. The Liberal government, having realised that the number of claimants was much higher than expected, cut the maximum payment almost by half. Some survivors said that having been required to tell their story was re-traumatising, and the process did not always lead to people feeling their story had been ‘heard.’

Questions:

Has the Unfolding Lives memorial brought healing? Has it helped to raise awareness, to give survivors that reassurance that their experience has been acknowledged?
Does this memorial create the impression that children only experienced abuse in the past, and that the past is over and done with?
The Perth Cultural Centre website advertises Unfolding Lives as a memorial acknowledging those who overcame adversity. But what about those who have not ‘overcome’ and who continue to be adversely affected by their childhood experiences?

Stolen Generations Memorial at Reconciliation Place, Canberra

The Canberra Stolen Generations Memorial is located within Reconciliation Place, an area of land near the edge of Lake Burley Griffin and in the direct line between the Australian Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is also on this line, but you could easily visit Reconciliation Place without seeing the Tent Embassy, as it is placed further down the hill.

The centre of Reconciliation Place is a wide grassed area, around which runs a path. To the left and right of the central area the path, is punctuated by 'slivers' that tell the story of various aspects of Aboriginal history post-colonisation – some celebrating achievements, others acknowledging injustice or struggle. There are also red rocks engraved with inspirational quotes and with images copied from ancient rock paintings.

The story of the Stolen Generations is told by two 'slivers', the first of these is made stainless steele and slumped glass, and was part of the original Reconciliation Place design developed by the project team led by architect Simon Kringas which won the National Capital Authority competition.

One side of this sliver is printed with the image of a young boy, and  and has the word for 'child' written in some Aboriginal languages. The other side has a number of small reproductions of mid-twentieth century news clippings about Aboriginal children, and embedded in a recess (covered by perspex) is a coolamon – a traditional carrying plate used by some Aboriginal communities which represents the absent children. Audio of a lullaby is activated when visitors walk near the sliver.

The second 'sliver' was created because members of the Stolen Generations, their families and supporters, did not feel the original design adequately explained or acknowledged the pain and sense of loss caused by the policies of removal. Th design was developed after extensive consultations with Aboriginal communities, members of the Stolen Generations, and people who were involved in child care practices during that time.

This sliver is made of granite and caste iron, and is much more earthy in look and feel, referencing the role of Aboriginal peoples as traditional custodians of the land.

On one side, holes are drilled in the shape of Australia, big enough for people to leave notes in if they wish. Engraved into the metal surface are quotes which tell the stories of the stolen generations in their own words, along with some quotes from some of their non-Aboriginal care givers. On the other side, water runs down the concrete surface in small rivulets into a pool at the bottom.

At one end of the sliver, a metal plaque is embedded into the granite. It gives a history of the policy of child removal, including this paragraph:

This place honours the people who have suffered under the policies and practices. It also honours those people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, whose genuine care softened the impact of what are
now recognised as cruel and misguided policies.

Reconciliation Place was conceived and built in the early 2000s, during the years of the Howard Government. Some people see it as a response to the 'Sorry' movement which demanded a Government apology in response to the 1996 Bringing Them Home Report into the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their families. Then Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologise, and although Reconciliation Place was built some people felt it didn't have the meaning it should have, because other acts of reconciliation were missing.

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is located just to the north of Reconciliation Place; it is a much more overtly political statement about Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia.

Questions:

Is the process of talking and listening that takes place before a memorial is developed as important as the memorial itself?