Episode Details

A painting of a ship. A cane knife. A pair of shoes. As the curator of Queensland Museum’s First Nations Cultures, South Sea Islander Imelda Miller collects objects that tell stories. Through these objects and their histories, she wants to give others the chance to connect with places, ancestors and identities. Imelda’s custom collection sheds light on the lives of South Pacific Islanders, including her family, who were  coerced and kidnapped to work on plantations in Australia from the 1860s, for little or no money. The practise is now known as blackbirding. But she also hopes to capture the experience of South Sea Islanders and their achievements today, to leave a footprint for the next generation.