White Lies | Desert Hothouse

Australia (as we know it) is built on the legal fiction of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one, the basis of the British claim to possession of Australia). Sovereignty has never been ceded and Australia is the only Commonwealth country without a Treaty with their First Nations peoples.

Many of these policies have affected Katina and others' own ancestors directly and have left lasting effects on the systemic and cultural landscape we know, understand, operate within and still benefit from today. Whilst some might inherit stolen wealth, others inherit intergenerational trauma.

White Lies attempts to show the disparity between truth and a lie and one version of history versus another whilst asking: “if we muzzle the truth of the land and its people, how are we to learn and understand how to care for it and live within it?”.