Collections from the Asylum: Past Lives, Present Tense

The exhibition Collections from the Asylum gives a fascinating glimpse into life inside and outside the walls of the former Mayday Hills Mental Hospital, Beechworth, Victoria.

Cynotype Pillowslips by Jenni Munday

Mental Asylums
Mental asylums, along with penal colonies, form part of Australia’s rich history of British settlement as institutions that ‘locked-up’ those deemed unfit for mainstream society. Mayday Hills Asylum was built in 1867 in response to the flood of migrants seeking their fortune in the Beechworth goldfields in the 1850’s. The asylum buildings still stand today, although decommissioned as a psychiatric hospital in 1995. Our exhibition, Collections from the Asylum: Past Lives, Present Tense offers a range of objects, artworks and stories, some never seen in public before, that provide a glimpse into the lives of patients, staff and the broader community from the former Mayday Hills Asylum at Beechworth, Victoria.

Ideas on Madness
Ideas about psychiatric hospitals can conjure images of harrowing treatment of patients chained to the walls at ‘Bedlam’, the first asylum established in the United Kingdom, in 1247. The madness of the lunatic asylum is a popular subject in movies including Scorsese’s thriller Shutter Island and Ratched, the Netflix series based on the backstory of Nurse Ratched, from Ken Kesey’s 1975 book and film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Collections from the Asylum: Past Lives, Present Tense
-held at the Albury Library Museum, New South Wales
In contrast, our exhibition illustrates ways the Beechworth Asylum was a rich social environment for 1,200 patients and 600 staff at its peak. Items on display include splendid embroidered garments made by a patient who called herself Dr Harrington, front covers of the New Open Door magazine produced by patients, and a group of china animals given by Dr Cunningham Dax, Chair of the Mental Health Authority of Victoria to the Superintendent’s daughter when he made his periodic inspections of the Mayday Hills hospital. Other exhibits include biographies of five men who served on the Western Front in World War One and who spent their final years as patients at Mayday Hills, artworks created by the researchers to illustrate their findings, and photographs of staff from different eras. The exhibition is a group of collections that illustrate the diverse community life, no longer hidden from public view.

The Collections from the Asylum: Past Lives, Present Tense exhibition was on display at the Albury Library Museum from 5 September – 29 November, 2020.
Explore the Collections Exhibition Online – hosted by the Albury Library Museum.
See also ABC News story: Albury Library Museum features history of former Mayday Hills asylum in exhibition

This exhibition is the result of research by the Mayday HiIls Research Group comprised of Dr Jennifer Munday, Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, Eileen Clark, Adjunct Research Fellow with Charles Sturt University and Dr Alison Watts, Adjunct Lecturer, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University.

1 thought on “Collections from the Asylum: Past Lives, Present Tense”

  1. Pingback: Images from the Mayday Hills Art Society archive: – Mayday Hills

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

css.php
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap