'Incredible healing': Artist Tony Albert receives more than 2,000 public donations from racist aborigines

Tea towels, ashtrays, tableware, and clothing depicting indigenous people and designs will be hand-delivered or mailed in each day during the artist's MCA exhibit. From natives - souvenirs, household items and other objects are depicted

Five months ago, Aboriginal artist Tony Albert launched a public appeal for Aboriginal donations - souvenirs, homewares and other items depicting Aboriginal people and designs, often caricatures, created and sold by non-Aboriginal people.

It was a request that accompanied his career exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney, which featured 4,400 objects from the artist's own collection - one he began as a child in the 1980s.

Now, in the closing days of the exhibition, the MCA is packing up and shipping another 2,000 items donated by the public to Albert Studios in Brisbane.

"I've been really overwhelmed by the generosity and the response," Albert says by email from Paris, where he is on a month-long art residency. The 45-year-old, who has family ties to the Girramay, Kuku Yalanji and Yidindji clans, has been in personal contact with those who imported the items.

"What impressed me the most was not just the number of items donated, but the personal stories and conversations that came with them," she says. "There is something incredibly powerful and healing about people who want to confront this history and entrust me with these objects, so that together we can give them new meaning."

Carolyn Ina, a 63-year-old artist and activist from Wirajuri, Sydney, painted an image of an Aboriginal man with a spear last week. They found it in a council pickup collection more than a decade ago.

"I would look at it and feel uncomfortable, but I didn't have a name for it," Ina says. "I didn't know what natives were." When they discovered it, they felt the previous owners were "throwing away a native".

"I don't think [people] understand the complexities of not only the damage of colonialism, and how different Indigenous people might see these Indigenous peoples, but also the propaganda of it," says Ina.

One of the goals of Albert Bomian's recall is to get items like this out of circulation. Another is to recapture them through your practice.

Leslie Pepper, who traveled from Dunedin in New Zealand to see the exhibition, left a collection of napkins, a placemat and four china plates that she had owned for "30 or 40 years".

"They probably bought them here in New Zealand in thrift stores," says the 67-year-old. "I have a Maori background, and when I first bought them I felt like I was bringing them home as a sign of respect."

One of his plates depicts a young Aboriginal woman whom Pepper said reminded him of himself. “[The woman] was probably never asked if her image could be used,” he says ruefully.

It wasn't an easy decision to give her pieces she'd loved for decades, but "when Tony said he wanted to take them out of circulation, I thought, 'Yeah well,' they have to come. If that's what he wants, that's what you do."

"Items are delivered to the MCA every day of the exhibition," says Antares Wells, assistant curator of the exhibition. One donation alone had 120 plates, cups and saucers depicting Aboriginal people, and another had 200 beer coasters.

Unlocking the items is a more positive experience than Wells first imagined. "When we started the appeal, we didn't know how the Australian public would respond - and in this political and cultural climate, the first thing I personally thought was I really hope we don't expose Tony to hate mail," he says.

"But I haven't seen a single piece of hate mail and I think it's been really incredibly inspiring and very powerful."

Catherine Hopps, who lives in Canberra, brought a pair of Australian silk scarves she had inherited from her grandmother to Sydney on her way back from visiting family.

"They were classic 1970s and 80s Australian souvenirs with kangaroos, wattles and uluros, and Aboriginal pictures and designs all mixed together," says the 46-year-old. I knew right away that this wasn't something I wanted to wear...I don't think my grandma would have any idea.

"The only reason I kept them is because I thought they should be in a museum," he says. "We can learn from these things, which is why I was delighted to find out about the Tony Albert exhibition and the opportunity to donate... it was so important to do this."

Although the MCA's donation boxes will be removed after the exhibit closes on Oct. 19, Wells says the gallery will gratefully accept any other donations, which will then be transferred to Albert.

He says that since his youth, collecting has been an integral part of Albert's life and artistic activity. "I don't think that will ever change, but what continues to evolve is my understanding of these objects and the possibilities they have for telling stories, challenging perceptions and creating something meaningful from a difficult history."

The donation that really stood out to him is a 1930s ceramic shaving mug in the shape of a caricature of an Aboriginal man's face.

"I find it amazing that someone would want to put this object in their bathroom and use it as part of their daily routine," he says. "These objects are actually incredibly rare and quite valuable, but what fascinates me the most is what they reveal about how Aboriginal people are represented and how much these images have become a normal part of Australian domestic life."

Tony Albert: Not a Souvenir runs at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney until 19 October 2026.