Dee Jefferson, ‘I can use it, I can abuse it’: Tony Albert spent decades collecting racist ‘Aboriginalia’. Now he wants to turn yours into art, The Guardian, May 2026
Not a Souvenir at the MCA highlights the commodification and misrepresentation of First Nations people – and invites the public to reckon with their complicity.
When Tony Albert was around six years old, he bought a plate with an illustration of an Aboriginal boy’s face on it from his local op shop. It was mid-1980s suburban Brisbane and although he had a large family with connections to the Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji peoples of north Queensland, seeing Aboriginal people or culture on TV was rare – so the plate “felt very special”, the 45-year-old artist recalls.