Unpacking ‘Aboriginalia’: Meet the man turning Australia’s kitsch history into art

September 1, 2026 — 12:00pmAmong the ubiquitous plates, tea towels and boomerangs sent to the Museum of Contemporary Art is a rare artefact: an Australian explorer board game by the long-defunct manufacturer Murfett Games.Its box cover displays every mid-century trope imaginable – pink-skinned, big-nosed gold panners and bushrangers alongside a kookaburra, a kangaroo and three stork-legged Aboriginal men with spears, shields and the same caricatured bulbous noses.Tony Albert with examples of kitsch Aboriginalia sent in by the public – some of it is funny, others parts are horrific.Steven SiewertIn four decades of collecting mass-produced kitsch featuring stereotypical – and often overtly racist – representations of First Nations peoples, artist Tony Albert, a Girramay, Yidindji, Kuku Yalanji man, had never encountered this particular game set.The game arrived courtesy of a public callout launched alongside Albert’s major solo show, Not a Souvenir. More than 4500 objects are included in the exhibition, which brings together Albert’s artwork alongside items from his personal collection. The MCA invited the public to post or drop off their own pieces of what Albert labels as Aboriginalia.The Murfett board game. Steven SiewertThe response has yielded more than 400 incoming objects, with new packages arriving weekly. Submissions range from a roll of pristine vintage wrapping paper to a collection of golliwogs.While minstrel-style toys aren’t items Albert directly incorporates into his practice, he notes the historical parallel: early Australian imagery frequently conflated depictions of African Americans with First Nations people.“That’s just scratching the surface,” Albert says.“We’ve had donations from people with larger private collections, and someone from rural Victoria got in touch wanting to run an appeal in their town. While I’ve seen many of these items across my 40 years of collecting, I’ve also encountered unique home crafts – my personal favourites because they are one-offs made by hand.”Figurines of Indigenous people: Albert says migrants often bought such items out of a sense of loyalty to their new home. Steven SiewertAlbert aims to repurpose these donated mementos to reframe conversations around Indigenous survival, reconciliation and cultural pride.“Some are nostalgic, some are appropriated – it’s a fine line,” he says. “We also have to understand and acknowledge our own entrepreneurs like Bill Onus and Jimmy Pike, who entered the tourist and souvenir markets on their own terms. This has never been about making people feel guilty; it’s about taking these objects and turning them into something that celebrates the world’s oldest living culture.”Albert’s obsession with Aboriginalia began at age six in suburban Brisbane, when he bought a small plate adorned with an Aboriginal child’s face from a local secondhand store. Decades later, that single purchase has expanded into a massive archive spanning numerous storage units, now being consolidated in his outer-Brisbane studio.Over the years, Albert has developed a keen interest in the social histories attached to these objects. He points to first-generation Greek and Italian migrants who frequently bought Aboriginalia during the postwar era as an act of solidarity or identification with their adopted home.Artist Tony Albert issued a callout to the public to contribute to his new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art.Trent Mitchell“They didn’t look at these as fake objects, but viewed the vase with Indigenous motifs on their dining room table with genuine affection,” Albert says. “It was their way of embedding themselves into Australia. I love those stories.”He also draws lines to mid-century modernists such as Margaret Preston, who adapted Indigenous iconography into mainstream art. When reflecting on the kitsch depictions of innocent First Nations children created during the era of assimilation policies, Albert views the context as layered.“Without a doubt, there is a strong political undercurrent to the work,” he says.“It would be wrong of me to say these don’t stem from a very problematic place, but the intent was sometimes well meaning – even if executed incorrectly through the lens of a time when these issues were not understood.”A 1980s-era calendar.Steven SiewertFor Not a Souvenir, Albert has created assemblages of Aboriginalia, from sentimental whimsical arrangements to the cynical: ASHamed features ashtrays made to have cigarettes stubbed out on the faces and bodies of featured Aboriginal people. A COVID-era video filmed on a green screen in his loungeroom has Albert sitting astride a wrecking ball bound for the statue of British explorer James Cook.Albert sees himself as travelling in the footsteps of pioneering First Nations artists such as Gordon Bennett and Destiny Deacon, who similarly reclaimed and dismantled painful racial motifs. Working largely without extensive academic literature on the phenomenon of Aboriginalia, Albert’s approach remains one of hands-on “trial and error”.But the location of the MCA in The Rocks precinct is fitting, he says, anchoring the exhibition at a historic flashpoint: where the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove, now a bustling hub for commercial tourism.“I’m responding to this idea of cultural commodification and the sale of our national identity at a historic site,” Albert says. “People understand the site, the monuments and the Captain Cook cruises, which reinforce the ideas within the show.”From our partners