Orange Regional Museum Creative Collections Commission 2025
As part of this project I was invited to select an object to creatively respond to from a collection list supplied by ORM.
The Object: A triangular, red textile pennant adorned with a gold-coloured textile motif, the pennant flag was owned by Barry Gibbins, a child migrant that grew up at the Fairbridge Farm School at Molong. Fairbridge Farm was part of a wider child migration program conceived by South African Kingsley Fairbridge. Operating in several British colonies, the scheme was designed to remove British children from a cycle of poverty by sending them to the fresh air and open spaces of the colonies. The boys were to be taught how to be farmers and the girls’ farmers wives. Molong Fairbridge Farm opened in 1937 and closed in 1973, and relied on the children’s labour to sustain and run the property. Though some remember their time at Fairbridge with fondness, there where many children suffered great hardship and abuse, often forcibly removed from their families whom they never saw again. More can be read about the program here.
The Response: This kite serves as a visual representation of a promised childhood, one of space and play under the vast blue Australian sky. Created in response to Barry Gibbin’s Scout Pennant Flag, it has been constructed from 1,200 hand-cut and dyed silk squares, one dedicated to each of the children who spent time at Fairbridge Farm School in Molong. During the development of this project, I was fortunate enough to learn from both oral and written histories of the experiences of the Fairbridge children, thanks to the generosity of the Molong Museum and the Orange Regional Museum. These accounts revealed a complex history - moments of friendship and joy, Barry writing of his first ever time experiencing tropical fruit (pineapple) on the ship to Australia, interwoven with experiences of extreme adversity. Cutting, dying and sewing these pieces together into a whole feels like such a reflection of the ongoing connection and community of the Fairbridgeons. This process was a time intensive labour of tenderness, requiring gentle handling in response to the fragile nature of silk, spending time with each fragment as the threads of these stories were bound together. Suspended from the kite are handmade porcelain bells, offering a quiet counterpoint to the regimented clang of the railway gong that once dictated their days. This work does not seek to tell their story but to acknowledge the fragility, resilience, and enduring community woven into it - creating a shared space for care, reflection, remembrance, and recognition.
This work is now part of the Museum’s permanent collection and is installed in the Inherited Histories display.
