Our researchers have partnered with Bringing them home WA and the WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation to transform former mission sites into healing spaces using virtual technology.
Between 1910 and the 1970s, as many as one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families throughout Australia and placed in mission sites under the direction of the government. Children of these Stolen Generations were confined, re-educated and denied their Aboriginality.
These mission sites have been identified as important places of healing for survivors, but visiting in person can be difficult.
The Missions Connect team, led by Curtin Professor Reena Tiwari, has worked closely with survivors, as well as archival records and site surveys, to virtually recreate highly detailed renderings of the Mogumber and Carrolup-Marribank missions.
“Missions Connect is the first immersive technological tool of its kind in Australia to be used for truth-telling, healing and reconciliation,” Professor Tiwari says.
One survivor, Timothy Flowers, was two years old when he and his siblings were taken to the Carrolup-Marribank mission near Katanning. He says the project has been a cathartic experience for him and can be a safe way for Stolen Generations people to tell their stories.
“No matter what challenge we went through in the mission, we all experienced the feeling of separation, and that was separation from our families. It was painful to be taken off your parents at a real young age,” Flowers says.
“These are the things we’ve been able to let out of our system.”
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