New exhibition explores the troubled legacy of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home

11 September 2025

In 2023, Perth-based visual storyteller Tace Stevens was commissioned by the Magnum Foundation and the World Monuments Fund to work with Survivors of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home (KBH).

During a site tour, two shadows are captured on a building built after KBH closed.
“They drove me down to Kinchela. Came to the gates. Lost my identity, my culture, stayed on the other side. When I come through that gate, Roger Jarret stayed the other side. I became number 12 for six years in this place.” Uncle Roger ‘Pigeon’ Jarrett #12. Image: Tace Stevens for Magnum Foundation & World Monuments Fund — During a site tour, two shadows are captured on a building built after KBH closed. “They drove me down to Kinchela. Came to the gates. Lost my identity, my culture, stayed on the other side. When I come through that gate, Roger Jarret stayed the other side. I became number 12 for six years in this place.” Uncle Roger ‘Pigeon’ Jarrett #12. Image: Tace Stevens for Magnum Foundation & World Monuments Fund

The collaboration has resulted in We Were Just Little Boys, a photographic series that confronts the legacy of the institution and the lived experiences of those who endured it, with an exhibition of the work now on display in Melbourne.

The series contrasts propaganda images once used to present Kinchela as a model institution with portraits of the men who lived there as children.

A 1943 article in the Macleay Argus described Kinchela as “turning out clean and healthy boys, who will develop into useful citizens,” a claim at odds with the reality recalled by the Survivors, now known as Uncles.

“When they were at Kinchela, the boys had no autonomy, no voice and no power,” Stevens said. “This work is about reclaiming that truth.”

The project comes at a time when public understanding of the Stolen Generations remains divided. Some Australians deny the policies existed, others frame them as beneficial, while many assume they are confined to the distant past.

Through Stevens’ portraits, the Uncles directly face the camera, and in doing so, confront audiences with their testimony.

The exhibition is open Wed-Fri 12-5pm or by appointment til Friday 26th September. More info here.

You can also read our profile of Tace Stevens from earlier this year here.