Bio

Tace Stevens is a Noongar and Spinifex visual storyteller based in Perth, Western Australia. She is a self-taught documentary photographer with a film degree from the Australian Film and Television Radio School. With a background in community development and education, story sovereignty and authenticity are important to her work. Tace was recently awarded the 2025 Olive Cotton Award, a prestigious, biennial national award for excellence in photographic portraiture, with her portrait of Uncle Bill, 2023.

tace stevens
@tacestevens

We Were Just Little Boys
Project statement

In 2023, I was commissioned by Magnum Foundation and World Monuments Fund, to work with the Survivors of the Kinchela Aboriginals Boys Training Home (KBH), to create a body of work that shone a light on the site, and the truth.

KBH was a NSW state-run institution near Kempsey, 4.5 hours north of Sydney, that operated from 1924 – 1970. Hundreds of Aboriginal boys, who were forcibly removed from their families, were sent here.

The purpose of this institution and others like it, was to assimilate Aboriginal children into white society. The policies that allowed for this created what are today referred to as the Stolen Generations.

When these boys entered Kinchela, their relationship and connection with their families, culture and identity was severed, leaving a lifetime of trauma and pain. Psychological, physical, and sexual abuse by the staff was a common experience. Here, the boys’ names weren’t used. They were assigned a number.

After Kinchela closed in 1970, it was re-purposed as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre that operated on the site between 1979 and 2017 when it shut its doors. The site has since been vacant, slowly eroding away. KBH sits within a rich agricultural landscape; the Macleay River is just a step across the road. It’s hard to believe that this idyllic scene contains so much trauma and pain.

This project wasn't just about documenting the site. I wanted to create photos that visualized how the Uncles saw this place. I wanted to give a face to the young boys who suffered here and highlight their strength and courage.

My approach to creating this project was to be an observer. It’s about these little boys returning as old men and explores their relationship with this place through observational photography and portraiture. This body of work, We Were Just Little Boys, explores contrasting narratives. Lies and truth. Past and present. Little boys and old men.

The Uncles didn’t have any autonomy when they were at Kinchela. They were little boys who didn't have anybody to protect them. Photos of the Kinchela Boys were constantly used as propaganda to show Australia that Kinchela was a good place and achieving what it had set out to do – “turning out clean and healthy boys, who will develop into useful citizens,” as written by the Macleay Argus in 1943. Taking their portraits on site was an act of them reclaiming this truth.

There is a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about the Stolen Generations. There are Australians today that believe it didn’t happen, that it was a good thing or that it happened generations ago. This series tells the truth. That it did happen. That Survivors are still alive. And that these institutions have caused intergenerational trauma that is ongoing today.

© Tace Stevens for Magnum Foundation, World Monuments Fund and Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation.
© Archival images by National Archives of Australia, Aboriginal Affairs NSW and Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

Other information:
This is a link to an artist video in co-creation with filmmaker Hugh Sando