January 26 is the date the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples changed forever.

January 26 marks the beginning of dispossession, of children being stolen from their families and of the countless massacres that took place on this land.

The Torch artist Ranga illustrates why he thinks January 26 is not a day to celebrate in his moving artwork and story ‘Blood and Tears’:

No story or image can ever truly show or explain the pain and suffering our past generations have been through.

Nothing can fully show the amount of blood that has been lost from our Mob and our Mobs Ancestors before us.

Since colonisation our Mob endured genocide, violence and separation.

To this day and forever more we feel the pain, the loss of blood and know of the many tears that has been shed by our Mobs past and present.

We may seem healed to many who don’t know the true pain our Mob and Country have suffered but the scars and pain will always be there.

Those tears we will never get back and that blood lost will be forever with our land, our Country, our home.

Support the work The Torch does at thetorch.org.au/support-us