Photo Series: The Kids of Keep River   (Northern Territory 2009)

Working just out of Kunanurra with the Ord Valley Aboriginal Health Service in a remote community focused on water rights. Communities were displaced from their ancestral land after a legal judgement defined that they no longer own the water on their native title – effectively rendering the land useless after those upstream exploited the water source until the river ran dry.  Families were split, a sense of purpose shattered, tens of thousands of years of cultural expertise was displaced with them.

However for the children, their world is still one of naive joy; singing, dancing, running, playing football; no different to kids anywhere around the world. The difference is what they are about to face, as they look to find a place in a world which seems stacked against them.