Her Name is Nanny Nellie

To mark NAIDOC Week, the Eureka Centre presents ‘Her Name is Nanny Nellie’ - a moving and timely story by Ngarigo and Awabakal film director, Daniel King. 

A trio of nameless statues stored in the archives of the Australian Museum trigger a great granddaughter's quest to honour her ancestors and reclaim their life stories. In 1925 Australia's Census declared Aboriginal people a 'dying race'. In the same year, the Australian Museum commissioned three statues of Aboriginal people: a child, a man and a woman, to be exhibited and studied as nameless objects. The woman was Nellie Bunjil Walker, Aunty Irene Ridgeway's great-grandmother and director Daniel King's great-great grandmother. 

This documentary film follows Aunty Irene’s journey to retrace Nellie’s life and to understand her times. Along the way she seeks to reconnect the other families to their ancestor’s statues and works with the museum to respectfully re-display the statues, this time, with their names, identities and dignity. This is far more than a symbolic quest, but an opportunity to change how we remember and represent, and to give the nameless. Aunty Irene’s personal journey opens a profound personal window on a national story, with global consequences for colonial museum collections everywhere. 

Following the screening, Dr Mariko Smith, Head of First Nations Collections & Research, Australian Museum will join in conversation with Nanny Nellie’s great granddaughter, Aunty Irene Ridgeway and film director Daniel King.