Ahead of NAIDOC Week, I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with my colleagues yesterday to see the thought–provoking Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir exhibition.
Have you heard about it?
Albert uses found materials in his artworks, which range from sculpture to photography, installation, painting and assemblage.
The found materials are items such as cups, tea towels, trays, playing cards and figurines that he has sourced from op shops and online. They depict Aboriginal people and designs but have been created by non-Indigenous people.
The mass-produced, often racist objects, souvenirs and household items feature caricatures, exoticised depictions or cultural designs of Indigenous Australians.
Mainly produced between the 1950s and 1970s, they were sold without the consent or financial benefit of Aboriginal communities.
Albert has been collecting them since he was six years old, eventually coining the term “Aboriginalia” for the genre.
As a child the items felt special because there were so few depictions of Aboriginal people or culture around him, but when he was in his teens he began to understand the uncomfortable undertones to the objects.
By collecting the objects and placing them in a gallery space, Albert aims to reclaim the symbols of prejudice and transform them into a display of survival, resilience and truth-telling.
More than 3000 items from his collection are featured in Not a Souvenir, with the exhibition inspired by the MCA’s location in The Rocks, which Albert says has become an “epicentre for cultural commodification” with its fake boomerangs and other tourist tat.
Some of Albert’s artworks are confronting, such as the room filled with Aboriginalia ashtray artworks, many featuring cigarettes stubbed out on depictions of Aboriginal faces and bodies.
Others have been arranged into provocative words, such as ASHamed.
Another visually stunning room is filled with artworks inspired by the works of Margaret Preston, which have been reimagined using fabric Aboriginalia such as tea towels and table cloths.
These artworks explore the complex ethics of Preston incorporating First Nations designs into her work.
There’s also a section that mixes humour with tragedy as Albert mimics Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball video clip, except he’s on a fitness ball, kicking the heads off colonial artworks.
Not A Souvenir is showing at the MCA until 19 October and I recommend checking it out.
There is so much to unpack in the exhibition, you could spend hours exploring the intricate, thought-provoking artworks, return and still discover something new.
Song of the day: Yothu Yindi “Treaty” (such a great song)
housegoeshome 
saw them live in Vancouver a couple of decades ago….