This Teenager's Drawing Of The Stolen Generation Will Be Used By Google

    A powerful reimagining of the Google logo by teenager Ineka Voigt will be used next year.

    Allan Clarke
    by Allan Clarke

    BuzzFeed News Reporter, Australia

    A powerful reimagining of the iconic Google logo by Canberra teenager Ineka Voigt will be used next year.

    Google Australia.

    The 16-year-old entered the sketch as part of Google's annual Doodle 4 Google competition where students across Australia have the opportunity to redesign the Google logo.

    I'd like to be a 'artivist,' someone that combines art and activism," Voigt said. "That's what I want my Doodle to do, activism through art," Voigt told Mashable.

    The sketch, called Stolen Dreamtime, depicts the trauma and sadness experienced by members of the Stolen Generation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were systematically and forcibly removed from their families between 1909 and 1970 to assimilate them into white culture.

    "If I could travel back in time I would reunite mother and child. A weeping mother sits in an ochre desert, dreaming of her children and a life that never was... all that remains is red sand, tears and the whispers of her stolen dreamtime,” Voigt said.

    Google Australia.

    Google does not officially publicise the dates when designs will feature on their homepage, but Voigt says she's been told it will feature for 24 hours on the homepage on Australian day January 26, 2016.

    Australia Day is a contentious day within the Indigenous community, widely labelled survival or invasion day by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

    Voight, despite being non-indigenous, felt it was important to acknowledge the struggles of the Indigenous community on Australia's national day of celebration.

    "I knew that the winning sketch gets to be on the homepage on Australia Day," Voigt says.

    "So I thought to myself, what is something in Australian history that has relevance to us? I find it to be one of the greatest atrocities Australia has ever committed. So if I could travel back in time, I would reunite mother and child."

    Voigt beat out 24,000 students to take the top prize, which also included $10,000 worth of technology for her high school.

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