Boneta Marie Mabo
Youth Programs Manager, Sisters Inside
As a First Nations woman and a prison abolitionist I believe that to decarcerate our bodies and minds from all prisons, physical and non physical we heal. I want a future that continues to prioritise health and wellbeing, prioritises caring for each other and is present. They way my old people were for 60000 years.
Boneta-Marie Mabo, Piadram/Munbarra, a proud Aboriginal and Torres Strait woman, a sugar slave descendant, a prison abolitionist, and artist.
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In 2017 she collaborated with the Royal Australian Mint in the design of a circulating commemorative 50c coin to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the 25th anniversary of the High Court Mabo decision.
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In 2016 she was the inaugural artist-in-residence for the State Library of Queensland’s kuril dhagun Indigenous centre, in 2014 she won People’s Choice award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Art Award for art celebrating the life of her activist grandfather, the late Eddie Koiki Mabo.
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Boneta-Marie is the State Youth Programs Manager at Sisters Inside where she has work for nine years. Sisters Inside is an independent community organisation, which exists to advocate for the human rights of women and girls in the criminal justice system. For the past six years the award contemporary artist has lead the Sisters Inside Young Women’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art Program.
Boneta-Marie is passionate about empowering women and girls affected by criminalisation and imprisonment to find their voice and to be heard.