For much of the last century, in museums, the works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists were treated as something outside the main story — consigned to a footnote of history or a side room in major galleries.

A new exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art wants to put the record straight.

Titled 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, it puts — front and centre — the remarkable work of Indigenous artists and places them in conversation with the colonial art that often treated them as subjects, rather than as equals.

Co-curator Shanysa McConville explores the exhibition and the history that lies behind it.