By John Bailey
Chris Austin was one of the first people incarcerated in Jika Jika, Pentridge Prison’s notorious maximum-security division.
It’s where he witnessed his first murder. He was 18, but by then he was more than familiar with Victoria’s penal system. “I first went to Pentridge when I was 16. Imagine doing that to a kid these days.”
Former inmate Chris Austin at Pentridge.Credit: Joe Armao
He’s 61 now, and the Keerraaywoorrong man is back in Pentridge in a very different capacity. Visitors to the facility are greeted by one of his large-scale murals, while three of his paintings decorate a cell in B-Division. He also runs tours of the former prison, discussing its history from first-hand experience. One such tour is coming up to coincide with National Reconciliation Week.
Austin’s career as an artist began a decade ago when he was imprisoned at Fulham Correctional Centre. He met representatives of The Torch, the Victorian organisation that encourages incarcerated First Nations people to explore their identity and culture through creative expression.
Austin’s tours include his murals and are happening as a part of National Reconciliation Week.Credit: Joe Armao
“That changed all our lives. It was the first time in our lives that we felt good about something. It was the first time I’d ever started something and was able to make some money from it,” he says. “The self-worth I felt from being able to create something, to see that people were interested in our art and interested in our stories was amazing.”
Until The Torch came along, Austin had never had a job. Now he sells his art, while also working for the not-for-profit organisation as a mentor for younger Indigenous Australians. “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever had money come in without stealing it. The Torch is my first job.”
Austin was introduced to the vicious cycle of Indigenous incarceration from a young age. He was five when he contracted tuberculosis and his family was forced to move from the Framlingham Mission near Warrnambool to Melbourne, where he spent 18 months in hospital. “My whole family moved to Preston. I realise now that even my parents didn’t know how to live in the suburbs,” he says. “We’d never experienced racism or nothing back home. It’s the first time we experienced racism, hatred, being ridiculed, everything.”
When he was nine, someone asked him to play lookout while they got up to something shady, and the resulting run-in with the police put him in front of a magistrate. He was removed from his home and made a ward of the state. “The first time I got locked up was in 1972. From then until 2017 I never been out a year. Always done three to five years, or more, and my longest time outside was nine months.”
It’s not hyperbole to say that art broke the 30-year cycle of repeated incarceration. “I got involved with The Torch and that taught me what my parents went through, what my grandparents went through, how I ended up on this cycle,” he says. “It turned me around. It showed me that I don’t have to get out of jail no more and steal and all that.”
Visitors at Confined 15, an exhibition of artworks from Indigenous artists who are currently in jail or recently released, in Glen Eira City Council Gallery.
The Torch holds an annual major exhibition titled Confined, and this year’s instalment features Austin as one of 380 artists. Austin will also create a new work live at the end of his upcoming Pentridge tour. He appreciates the opportunity to take strangers on these tours not just for the chance to explain what went on behind the prison walls, but to illuminate the struggles that put Indigenous people like him behind bars in the first place.
“We’re not just bad people. We’re here because of circumstances that are uncontrollable for us, or that we thought were uncontrollable at the time. But we can change it.”
The Torch now works with more than 1000 current or former prisoners, and Austin says that the recidivist rate among them has gone from more than 65 per cent down to around 16 per cent. “What we do is something really good. You can see it working.”
Passing that lesson on to younger generations is now something that gets him out of bed in the morning. “Every time I get to talk to someone or tell my story, it’s like a strip of the bad stuff gets torn away and replaced by something good.”
Chris Austin’s next Pentridge tour is on June 1. Confined 15 is at Glen Eira City Council Gallery until June 2.
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