1. Artists
2. Autobiographies
3. Belonging
4. Book design
5. Discrimination
6. Domestic life
7. First Nations people
8. Racism
9. Reconciliation
10. Resilience
11. Stolen Generations
12. Visual literacy

Fortunate children grow up with a loving family and secure home environment. The 1997 Australian Government report, ‘Bringing Them Home’ details the ‘Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families’. These children are known as the ‘Stolen Generation’. Kunyi June Anne McInerney is one of these, and this is her recollection of life in the Ooonadatta Children’s Home in South Australia.

In 1955, Kunyi and her siblings were taken from their mother and placed in the Oodnadatta Children's Home. Kunyi was four years old. She shares her life there through more than 60 paintings and stories about her childhood up until she was nine years old. The endpapers repeat the internal artwork as kaleidoscopic small images. These are in bold, dark colours rendered in acrylics on canvas. The sand hills, plants, and creatures in the area also feature.

Kunyi’s life at Oodnadatta meant corrugated iron sheds with no insulation, bunk beds with rag sheets and kerosene lamps for light. The children worked preparing food, collecting wood for the stove and the laundry and other tasks. ‘Kunyi’ retells her daily life including Bible lessons and hymns in the morning and games of acrobatics, hide-and-seek, chasey, sack races and knucklebones at night. Sunday art time inspired the artist in these children. When Kunyi was nine years old she was fostered and lived with her foster mother until she was 17 years of age.

Additional material includes a biographical profile of Kunyi with black and white photographs from her childhood. Kunyi explains, ’These are my stories from a dry remote place where my experiences were so different from what Australian children know today. I want to tell my story, so they don’t ever do it again. They took away my family, my culture and who I could have been. These are not fairy tales, they are true. I want people to understand what happened.’ (Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery 6 December 2018)

Kunyi June Anne McInerney was born on Todmorden Station near Oodnadatta in South Australia in 1951. Her family’s language group is Yankunytjatjara.

1. Reading Opens Doors Blog, Elise Ellerman reviews ’Kunyi’ by Kunyi June Anne McInerney https://blog.readingopensdoors.com.au/?p=848
2. Book review by Jo Vobalis, ’Kunyi’ by Kunyi June Anne McInerney, 12 June 2021 https://glamadelaide.com.au/book-review-kunyi-by-kunyi-june-anne-mcinerney/
3. Reading Time review by Kevin Brophy of ‘Kunyi’ by Kunyi June Anne McInerney, 26 July 2021 https://readingtime.com.au/kunyi/
4. ‘Vibrant exhibition to draw upon artist’s childhood experiences’ by Taylor Harvey, 4 November 2020 https://www.borderchronicle.com.au/story/6999070/vibrant-exhibition-to-draw-upon-artists-childhood-experiences/
5. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander paintings collected in Our Mob, God’s Story by Josephine Lim, 29 March 2017 https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/arts/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-paintings-collected-in-our-mob-gods-story/news-story/fc4452b33bf177aeeeeb4362127c6f6a
6. Australian Human Rights Commission, Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet, Bringing Them Home: Stories of the Stolen Generations, an interactive website for school students about the Stolen Generations. Resources have been produced in partnership with the peak body, Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Care State Secretariat or AbSec. https://healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/key-resources/resources/34250/?title=Bringing%20them%20Home%3A%20Stories%20of%20the%20Stolen%20Generations
7. Kunyi June-Anne McInerney interviewed by Sue Anderson in the Bringing them home oral history project [sound recording] 7 June 2000, 2 digital audiotapes (ca. 99 min.) 40pp transcript is available at the National Library of Australia. Access open for research; written permission required for personal copies and public use of transcript only https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/415509