Like dates of birth, places of birth were not available for many artists in the Storylines sample. In the end we had places of birth for 400 artists: Figure 4.1 gives the numbers from each state as a percentage of this total: NSW 103 (26%); VIC 55 (14%); QLD 109 (27%); SA 45 (11%); TAS 22 (5%); WA 63 (16%) and NT  3 (1%). Victoria, with 6.5% of the overall Indigenous population, appears to be the most over-represented in the Storylines sample – on this measure at least.

Figure 4.1 Frequency for states of birth

To give a sense of where within each state these artists came from, the various birthplaces supplied to the researchers were categorised into regions, based on ABS divisions. Of the artists with birthplaces in NSW, more were born in Sydney than anywhere else in the state (27), followed by the North Coast 14, the New England/North West 12, Richmond Tweed (Northern Rivers) 11 and the rest scattered across the state or with only ‘NSW’ given as place of birth. In every other state in the survey, the opposite pattern was found. Thus the data from Victoria indicated that about the same number of artists came from Gippsland and East Gippsland (15) as were born in Melbourne (16). In Tasmania, the state where our data was most complete in terms of both the overall number of artists and detail on their lives, most of the 22 artists who provided their birthplaces were not from Greater Hobart, but from Northern and North-East Tasmania (14).  In Queensland, where the northern parts of the state lie outside the survey area, only six people reported being born in Brisbane, compared with 28 in Far North Queensland. In SA, where similar considerations apply, only 6 gave Adelaide as their place of birth – more came from Eyre (7) and the north of the state (12). Again in WA, 11 people cited Perth as their place of birth compared with 25 from the Lower and Upper Great Southern region in the south west of the state. These findings tend to suggest that a majority of Storylines artists may not have come originally from ‘major capitals’ – though as we shall see in Residence, many of them later gravitated to the big cities.