‘Welcome to Redfern’ (2013)

36 Caroline St, Redfern 2016

Melbourne-based artist and Kamilaroi man Reko Rennie created this mural with eight young local Aboriginal people, as the result of a commission by the City of Sydney and curator Hetti Perkins. Like Rennie’s perhaps better known building mural in Taylor Square, ‘Always Was and Always Will Be’, this work is envisaged as a powerful statement about Aboriginal presence on – and original ownership of – the land. ‘Welcome to Redfern’ was the first commission in the ‘Eora Journey’ public art project in Redfern. The Victorian terrace he was tasked with transforming is the site for a forthcoming “living museum” of the Block. Rennie asked the teens what they wanted on the building, and they decided they wanted text, and a figure to represent the past. After much workshopping and searching the archives, they settled on an image of an Aboriginal man in a bark canoe in Botany Bay.