PRACTICE IN COMMUNITY  PROJECT 

Unlocking Kahlin
Community-led storytelling initiative preserving Kahlin Compound histories and empowering descendants through culturally controlled archival practice.
Primary Project Location: Darwin, NT

Kahlin Kinections is a community-led storytelling project by Friends of Kahlin, a Stolen Generations community connected to the former Kahlin Compound in Darwin. The project gathers what remains - scattered archives, family-held materials, and the living reflections of Elders and families - holding them close within a community-controlled archive. At a time of urgency, the project recentres community voice, re-embedding memory, story and lived experience into the Kahlin site and community beyond. 

“This grant allows for the trust, flexibility and autonomy communities need to shape their own creative outcomes. I’m deeply grateful to the Kahlin community for the opportunity to support their work through this project. As they continue to remind me, telling the truth is essential for healing, and seeking and receiving that truth, however uncomfortable to hear, is all of our responsibilities."
- Caddie Brain

 ABOUT CADDIE 

Caddie Brain is a CACD producer who works in site and sound, based in Darwin on Larrakia Country. Her anti-disciplinary work resurfaces marginalised histories and voices through headphones, immersive exhibitions or unexpected digital forms. Her practice is collaborative, curious and slightly unruly, often reworking technologies new and old to carry language, memory and place in unexpected ways. From audio to apps, crushed cars to unofficial street signs, her work is driven by a simple idea: the story chooses the form. Recent projects include the redevelopment of MAGNT’s Cyclone Tracy exhibition, audio works and interpretation for sites including Fannie Bay Gaol, Darwin CBD and Kakadu, and ongoing work with Indigemoji. 

Images Supplied: 
1. Friends of Kahlin 
2. The Torana crush for MAGNT's Cyclone Tracy exhibition 
3. The Arrernte Street Signs project 
4. Binaural recording for A Tale of Four Cities 

 FOLLOW ALONG  

www.caddiebrain.com | Instagram