Some of the political works of art on display in the Not Dead Yet exhibition are confronting, while others are extremely emotive. What they all seek to do is give a voice to some of Australia’s most marginalised communities.

The exhibition at the Flinders University City Gallery surveys the work of Northern Territory political poster movement pioneers Therese Ritchie and Chips Mackinolty, comprising political posters, screen prints, drawings, photographs, digital collage works and limited-edition fine art prints and paintings.

“They are very, very powerful political works,” Flinders University City Gallery director Fiona Salmon says of the collection.

“They are political events of consequence that will speak to audiences.”

The works are on loan from the Charles Darwin University Art Collection. Juxtaposing the lives and landscapes which define the Top End, they show the passion and the struggles of Territorians from the 1970s to the present.

“It’s a very different story about Indigenous people than we normally hear.”

With a strong focus on issues affecting Indigenous Australians, Ritchie and Mackinolty are passionate about standing up for the rights of Australia’s first people.

“They want to give a voice to Aboriginal people who are so often marginalised in the mainstream press or not represented at all,” Salmon says.

“Therese and Chips are interested in human rights generally, but Indigenous rights are of particular importance to them.”

“For them, living in the Top End, it’s the most visible and pressing issue day-to-day.”

Ms Salmon says the works have made people across Australia think about the challenges faced by Aboriginal Australians, as well as the Timorese, and raised the plight of those people “into the mainstream consciousness.”

“It’s a very different story about Indigenous people than we normally hear.”

Many of the prints and posters date back three or four decades, with viewers able to follow a visual narration of Australian political history.

“We have works from the ’70s and some date back to the University of Sydney, when Chips was an arts student there,” Salmon says.

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Anita Angel, curator of the Charles Darwin University Art Collection and developer of the collection, says while the works’ origins lie in the Territory, audiences Australia-wide will relate to the themes.

“It is a place where the personal is political and life, like art, is only as honest as you are,” she says.

“Messages conveyed by their art travel well beyond the Northern Territory’s borders.”

Close links between the two host universities helped bring the collection to Adelaide for the first time.

“Flinders University and Charles Darwin (University) are sibling institutions, in a sense,” Salmon says.

The exhibition continues until July 14.