Featuring twenty-five artists, the 2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art is titled “Free/State.” In it, Sydney-based curator Sebastian Goldspink, a proud descendant of the Burramattagal people of Western Sydney, wants to make something of South Australia’s specific colonial history. Tarntanya/Adelaide, unceded Kaurna Country, is the state’s capital. The tale of the 1836 founding of South Australia as a “free colony”—unlike the penal colonies that began with New South Wales in 1788—is often recounted with pride. But this story tends to leave out important details, including the fact that free