John Stanton

08/01/2024

French Arte Documentary on Carrolup Has Been Broadcast

On 22nd February last year, I reported on my experience in a blog ‘Filming The Carrolup Story for a European Audience’. I had been working with a French TV production team on a project, for Arte, the French/German broadcasting network, and with its Directrice, Emma Piesse. Emma had, in fact, […]
10/07/2023

Noelene Melville White, 10 November 1933 – 25 June 2023

With great sadness, on 6 July, we laid to rest Noelene White, eldest daughter of Noel and Lily White and sister of the late Janette and Ross White, whose careful custodianship of the Carrolup School papers assembled by her parents contributed so much to our knowledge of the […]
27/02/2023

Filming The Carrolup Story for a European audience

In late November, we were approached via our website by Emma Piesse, a Producer at the Franco-German television channel, Arte, which has a focus on arts and cultures of the world. (I was already familiar with Arte, as I watch it regularly when I am with family in […]
19/05/2022

Marribank Cultural Centre

I recently came across these old photos of the displays we did at the Marribank Cultural Centre, Carrolup. The Cultural Centre was, as I have already blogged, funded with a grant from the Australian Bicentennial Authority, something many First Nations peoples wouldn’t have a bar of. But the […]
18/04/2022

Opening of New Gallery at Balingup

I have recently returned from attending the Opening of a new Gallery at Balingup. It was curated by Wadandi-Pibulmun Elder and Stolen Generations survivor, artist Sandra Hill, with the support of family and friends. The long-term exhibition is presented in the Packing Shed on the main road of […]
12/01/2022

On Being a Social Anthropologist

Here is a copy of the Address that John gave to the Rotary Club in Kojonup on 28 October 2021, after being invited by Alan (‘Bear’) Warburton. NB. Click on small images to increase their size. I have come to this meeting of Kojonup Rotary with a deep […]
21/04/2020

Uncle Angus Wallam R.I.P.

I had a bit of a breakthrough recently, as I have wanted to put a post on The Carrolup Story of the video-recording from back in 2005 of the late Uncle Angus Wallam sending a message to the President (Vice-Chancellor) of Colgate University. This was at the time that Ezzard […]
23/01/2020

Vera Hack’s Missing Cine Film

One of the puzzles in the Carrolup Story concerns the missing cine film that Mrs Vera Hack (later Gaarde) took of the Aboriginal boys of Carrolup Native Settlement on 1st February 1950. Vera told me about the film when I interviewed her at her home on 24th January 1986, […]
24/09/2019

Pat Nunn and ‘Art and Australia’

Pat Nunn, who originally came to live in Western Australia from Lesotho, Southern Africa with her husband Courtney, played a crucial role in the re-emergence of the Carrolup Story. She was working as the Social Worker at Marribank Baptist Mission, formerly Carrolup Native Settlement. In fact, she was […]
17/09/2019

The Child Artists Assert Themselves Through Their Art

Too often, adults in many societies tend to view ‘children’ as ‘immature’, naïve’ or ‘child-like’. The Carrolup children’s drawings demonstrate an entirely different side to what it is to be a ‘child’. For not only were they part of the Stolen Generation, taken away from their parents, and […]
19/06/2019

Meeting Parnell Dempster

I first met Parnell (‘Parnie’) Dempster in mid-1985 at the town of Williams, when I was commencing the Carrolup Project. He was living there at the time. Pat Nunn at the Marribank Family Centre had told me that he was one of only two surviving child artists of […]
11/06/2019

Show Us A Light

In 1986, the Carrolup Project Committee was set up by a Noongar community meeting held at Marribank. Its purpose was to oversee the Carrolup Project, which was to be funded by the Australian Bicentennial Authority, and comprised four key elements: To employ two trainees (1986-87), featured in a previous […]
05/06/2019

Marribank Reunion

A reunion of former Marribank residents was held over the weekend of 14 – 15th November 1992, to officially open a further gallery of the Marribank Cultural Centre, which focused on the Marribank Baptist Mission years 1952 – 1980. This exhibition had been mounted by myself at the […]
31/05/2019

Don’t Forget To See ‘Carrolup Revisited’: Closes 29th June

This is simply a reminder to go and see, if you can, the current exhibition of Carrolup child art, and more recent Noongar works, at the Berndt Museum’s exhibition at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia, Perth. I am delighted to see the artworks […]
29/05/2019

Art Continues After Closure of Marribank

The Baptist Union took over Carrolup in 1952 after its closure, renaming it Marribank Baptist Mission to avoid the negative connotations of the former Native Settlement. It was renamed Marribank Family Centre in 1980, and was run throughout the Baptist period as a residential home for Aboriginal children […]
21/05/2019

Carrolup: Child Artists, Noongar Identity, and World Heritage

Two weeks ago, I attended the annual meeting of the Centre of Native Title Anthropology (CNTA), held in conjunction with the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation. This workshop focused on the theme Native Title in a Time of Change. David Clark and I were invited to address the symposium […]
11/05/2019

Workshop Presentation Sparks Painting Gift

When I commenced the Carrolup Project back in 1985, one of its purposes was to flush out surviving drawings and paintings by the child artists of Carrolup. Media coverage in the Great Southern Herald, the Katanning newspaper, assisted in this task. When the Noongar trainees Tina Hansen and […]
22/04/2019

The Pastel Drawing Books

To begin with, the child artists used whatever pencils, pastel crayons and scraps of paper that were available at the Carrolup Native Settlement School. As the enthusiasm they expressed for their art was rapidly apparent, Noel White requested better materials from the Department of Education. Government Issue pastel […]
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