In Victoria, from the mid-nineteenth century, this practice of ethnographic photography assisted in justifying the attempted subjugation and dispossession of Indigenous people throughout the state. The photographic collections held at the Museum show that the motivations of some photographers who 'captured' the images of Koori people were either ignorant of, or avoided recognising, the value of the lives and histories of those people.

The staged settings within which many of these images were produced, and the poses which Koori people were at times forced to adopt, attempted to subdue the subject and present our culture as obsolete when confronted with the invasive nature of British colonialism.

However, the photograph (from the Charles Walter collection) of a young Koori girl 'Little Lizzie', a five-year-old girl removed from her own country, taken at the Coranderrk reserve in 1865 is not subdued by the colonial lens. Her face emits a strength that is symbolic of Koori people throughout Victoria and indicative of the Aboriginal history of survival. 'Lizzie' defiantly returns a gaze to the camera, articulating an understanding that the colonial photographic project as evidence of Aboriginal 'cultural dispossession' is a myth, as is any notion that this culture is not dynamic and vibrant today.

Tony Birch
1999