In this episode, historians Kate Fullagar and Mike McDonnell revisit Bennelong’s portraits to examine how colonial art encountered Indigenous identity. Indigenous scholar Jo Rey, a Dharug woman, challenges these depictions, questioning their accuracy and impact.

The conversation then expands to the Pacific, where Māori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville discusses the story of Tupaia, a Polynesian navigator and artist who traveled with Captain Cook. His illustrations of first contact tell a different story—one of Indigenous agency, not just European discovery.

What do we see when we look at these portraits today? And more importantly, what do they obscure? Join us on Unsettling Portraits to find out.

Episode images

Ben-nel-long

By the Port Jackson Painter, c. 1790. Watling, Thomas. Courtesy of the Natural History Museum, London.

Ben-nil-long

By James Neagle, 1798. Courtesy National Library of Australia.

Australian Aborigines paddling bark canoes and spear fishing

DRAWINGS, in Indian ink, illustrative of Capt. Cook's first voyage, 1768 -1770.

This may record the fishing party observed by Joseph Banks at Botany Bay on 26 April 1770.

By A. Buchan, John F. Miller, and others. Courtesy British Library.

A Maori bartering a crayfish with an English naval officer

DRAWINGS, in Indian ink, illustrative of Capt. Cook's first voyage, 1768 -1770, chiefly relating to Otaheite and New Zealand.

By A. Buchan, John F. Miller, and others. Courtesy British Library.

Guests

Jo Rey is a Dharug scholar and Macquarie University Fellow for Indigenous Researchers in the Department of Indigenous Studies. Her research focuses on Dharug Ngurra/Country, which spans much of the Sydney metropolitan area, examining key cultural sites, including Shaw’s Creek Aboriginal Place and the Blacktown Native Institution. Building on her doctoral research on Dharug cultural continuity, her post-doctoral work explores Indigenous cultural agency through the concept of ‘Living Law’—a framework of sustainable relationality based on Recognition, Respect, Rights, Responsibility, and Reciprocity.

Alice Te Punga Somerville (Māori – Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) , professor of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia, is a poet, scholar, and irredentist whose work explores Indigenous connections, colonial histories, and the power of language. She is the author of Once Were Pacific: Māori Connections to Oceania, 250 Ways to Write an Essay about Captain Cook, and the poetry collection Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised, each challenging dominant narratives and centering Indigenous perspectives.

Credits

Producers: Catherine Freyne and Helene Thomas.

Story Editor: Siobhan McHugh

Sound Engineer: Martin Peralta

Additional production and editorial support: Jane Curtis, Britta Jorgensen and Celine Teo-Blockey

Additional tile design and podcast artwork: Alexandra Morris

Executive Producer: Sarah Gilbert

To cite this episode

Fullagar, K (researcher and host), Freyne, C (producer), McDonnell, M (researcher and host), Thomas, H (producer) (2025), 'Unsettling Portraits' Episode 2. In History Lab by Impact Studios, https://impactstudios.edu.au/podcasts/history-lab/s6/ and 10.5281/zenodo.15086322

Can colonial depictions of Indigenous people tell us anything useful about the past?

How do Indigenous people today feel about these enduring images?

Unsettling Portraits is a three-part series exploring the history of portraiture and colonialism, alongside contemporary First Nations responses.

Indigenous artists and historians in Australia, the Pacific and North America discuss the practice of colonial portraiture, including Daniel Browning, Jo Rey, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Gordon Henry and Joseph Pierce.

And you'll hear about the ways in which contemporary artists like Daniel Boyd, Michel Tuffery and the late Destiny Deacon have turned back the gaze on settlers with their art.

Join acclaimed historians Kate Fullagar and Mike McDonnell as they and their collaborators wrestle with the portraits of our colonial past in History Lab Season 6: Unsettling Portraits.

Credits

History Lab is a UTS Impact Studios production.

• Producers: Catherine Freyne and Helene Thomas.
• Story Consultant: Siobhan McHugh
• Sound Engineer: Martin Peralta
• Production support: Jane Curtis, Britta Jorgensen and Celine Teo-Blockey
• Additional tile design and podcast artwork: Alexandra Morris
• Executive Producer: Sarah Gilbert

If you're an old friend, hello and thank you for hitting play. If you're a new listener, welcome.

History Lab, as many of you will know, was Australia’s first investigative history podcast.

We've made five seasons so far, and our tagline is exploring the gaps between us and the past.

And while you notice that from season to season our storytelling style changes, we're still always asking questions that provoke curiosity, that are attentive to sources and their limits, and that challenge us to think about how we live in the present.

Things have been a bit quiet on the History Lab feed lately, so we want share two bits of exciting news, and preview what's coming up in 2025!

History Lab season 5 won an international Signal award for the Red Light Green Light episode of Listen to Darlinghurst.

And, History Lab had a baby! It’s called Hey History!, and it’s an Australian history podcast for kids and their adults. Each episode explores a different topic, from first meetings at Kamay Botany Bay, to the Gold Rush.

This year, there’s three new seasons of History Lab coming your way.

First up is Unsettling Portraits, a series that looks closely at the history of portraiture, colonialism, and First Nations responses. You’ll hear historians Kate Fullagar and Mike McDonnell speaking with Indigenous scholars, critics and artists about what these pictures mean today.

Ancestral Echoes is a second History Lab season hosted by researcher, producer and historical novelist Sienna Brown.

Brown hails from Jamaica, and across three episodes, she explores the stories of some significant but little-known Caribbean Australians.

In unearthing these stories, she’s looking for a connection with the past that will help her feel more at home here.

And in a third History Lab series, historian Leigh Boucher explores the untold histories of the HIV epidemic in Sydney in the 80s and 90s.

The series tells the story from a new perspective, focusing in on the very tight but by no means homogenous 'gaybourhood' of Darlinghurst.

History isn’t the only thing we do here at Impact Studios, of course.

You can hit play on the three-part narrative podcast Sink or Swim, where host Angelica Ojinnaka Psillakis learns to swim as an adult and works out how to survive in our ever hotter suburbs.

And for lovers of books and as well as history, check out Fully Lit - a new podcast about Australian books. The trailer's out and episodes release soon.

A special History Lab episode with a soundwork that explores the history of Sydney's South Head, followed by an interview with the maker Sinead Roarty and Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, Tamson Pietsch.

About the soundwork: On the Edge

The Gap at South Head in Sydney's eastern suburbs is a place of extreme beauty. It is also famous for being Australia's most well-known suicide destination.

On the Edge is a long-form binaural/VR soundwork exploring South Head’s spatial history and its varied conflicting narratives. The work addresses multiple levels of ‘silencing’ from the time of colonial contact and uses sound to give a voice to the unheard. South Head's ruptured history has shaped the perception of it in the past and this soundwork suggests a way to reanimate it in the present.

The thirteen-minute soundwork is best experienced at the Don Ritchie Grove, located a few minutes’ walk from The Gap lookout and can be accessed on a mobile phone from the website https://www.ontheedge.space/

On the Edge was created as part of a non-traditional PhD at the University of Technology Sydney. The PhD was subsequently recognised as the best doctoral thesis from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 2023 and was included on The Chancellor's List, which recognises ‘exceptional scholarly achievement in PhD research’.

On the Edge transcript

• Word doc transcript
• PDF transcript

On the Edge Credits

• Writer/Director: Dr Sinead Roarty
• Primary Supervisor: Dr Delia Falconer
• Alternate Supervisor: Assoc Professor Debra Adelaide
• Sound Studio: MassiveMusic
• For all credits see https://www.ontheedge.space/

Episode credits

Sound engineering: Simon Branthwaite

Episode image photo by Sinead Roarty.

History Lab is a production of UTS Impact Studios.

We've got a new history podcast for you and the kids in your life, called Hey History!

With immersive, sound rich storytelling and Australia's top historians and experts, dive into key events in our history.

Find out...

• How did First Nations people learn on Country? How does learning happen today?

• What really when Captain Cook and First Nations people met at Kamay Botany Bay?

• What was life like as a convict kid? How did you remember your loved ones?

• How did everyone get along in the Gold Rush?

In each episode, kids from around Australia share questions, ideas and reflections on our history. Hey History! aligns with the upper primary curriculum, so teachers can use it in class.

The Bonus episode answers your questions on how to talk with kids about Australian history, and answer curly questions.

Hey History! is made by Professor Anna Clark, a previous guest on the History Lab, Professor Clare Wright OAM, and the team at UTS Impact Studios.

Subscribe, get Learning Materials and more on the Hey History website http://heyhistory.net or in your podcast app.

In 1887 there were no less than 22 hotels in Darlinghurst. Over the next century and a half, the character, culture and clientele of Darlinghurst pubs evolved. This story explores the impact on Darlinghurst of two episodes of liquor licensing restrictions in NSW: six o’clock closing and the Sydney lockout laws.

Image: Royal Sovereign Hotel, corner Darlinghurst Rd and Liverpool St, 1921 (City of Sydney Archives)

Credits

This audio story is a production of the Australian Centre for Public History in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

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Producer: Catherine Freyne

Sound engineer: Judy Rapley

Music:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• When Paris is Singing by Dazie Mae licensed under CC by NC-SA 3.0 US

Archival: ABC Content Sales

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Featuring:

• Paul Solomon, publican’s son and grandson
• Max Burns-McRuvie, owner of Journeywalks
• Tyson Koh, founder of Keep Sydney Open