Remembering Uncle Jack Charles

To describe Uncle Jack Charles as a titan of film, theatre and music on this continent is an understatement. Uncle Jack Charles artistic career spanned six decades and countless artforms, collaborations and projects. In 1971, he co-founded Nindethana, the first Aboriginal theatre company, alongside Bob Maza, a Yidinjdji and Mer Islander actor and activist.

After decades walking the boards, Charles exploded into the mainstream through his starring role in Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s award-winning documentary Bastardy (2008) which followed a period of seven years in the actor’s life, which took its name from John Romeril AM’s 1972 play, in which Charles starred in a semi-autobiographical role.

Winning the Grand Jury Prize at FIFO International Documentary Film Festival 2010, and the AFCC Best Documentary Jury Prize in 2009, the documentary revealed to a broader audience what anyone who had seen Charles perform already knew to be true: that he was not just a charismatic and gifted performer, but a staunch truth-teller.

Charles used his art and his platform to advocate tirelessly for the rights of incarcerated people, particularly Indigenous people. He channeled his own life experience into a generous, vulnerable, expansive artmaking practice that sought to uplift and connect, with a focus on the most vulnerable members of Indigenous communities.

In 2017, he presented a talk at TedXSydney where he described his own work in mentoring Indigenous incarcerated people, and the importance of including Elders with lived experience of incarceration in the rehabilitation and care of young incarcerated Indigenous people.

“I’d like to be in a position where I can pick these fellas up at the gate – these girls and boys, pick them up from prison and take them to a place of sanctuary,” he said, continuing, “They can stay there and clean their act up, to set their minds free and re-educate them – to push a bit of Blackness back into them, and reconnect them to culture, kinship, communities, family ties and law. I believe this would reduce the amount of prisoners in our youth detention centres.”

The talk was followed by a performance of Archie Roach’s ‘We Don’t Cry,’ with Charles performing Paul Kelly’s part.

In addition to his accolades at National NAIDOC Week in 2022, Charles had previously been awarded the Tudawali Award at the Message Sticks Festival in 2009 in recognition of his lifetime contribution to Indigenous media. In 2014, he received a Green Room Lifetime Achievement Award.