Leicolhn McKellar is a Budjiti woman from South West Queensland who has made her home in Larrakia Country. Guma means blood in the Budjiti language, as well as being the title of McKellar’s visual exploration of contemporary pan – Aboriginal identity. Her photo series and video challenge reductive visual tropes.

Set in urban Darwin, Guma captures the everyday lives of First Nations families, celebrating their strength, connection and presence in spaces often excluded from mainstream representations. Through collaborative portraiture and urban landscape elements, McKellar highlights the deep ties between place and identity, confronting colonial constructs that question the authenticity of urban Aboriginality. Guma reclaims the visual narrative, presenting First Nations peoples as they are: multifaceted, contemporary and unbound by stereotype.

Image: Leicolhn McKellar, Shades of Aboriginality, 2018.