Australias oldest lunatic asylum

[artful bodger]

Willow Court.
This place opened in 1830 and closed down in 2000. However there has been an art show going on here since Thursday. While you were not allowed to take pictures of the artworks or the artist you were allowed to take pictures of the buildings. Most of these ones are from ward C for the criminally insane. The place is usually locked up these days and only visited by scores of possums (there is pooh everywhere) and young vandals. Part of the deal of the art show was that visitors had to take a mirror and leave it there somewhere. So that explains mirrors in some of the pictures.

[artful bodger]

A few more...

[Simplicity]

Kind of scary and creepy
I didn't really feel comfortable looking at the pics
I can't explain it but just didn't fit well

Cheers Matt

[artful bodger]

Yes Simplicity I know what you mean, in fact I think everyone who went to the particular art show thought along the same lines. It was really interesting observing other people who were there and the reactions.
This place pre-dated the notorious "Port Arthur" prison and would have housed many inmates from there who went round the bend from the cruel conditions. It goes back to the convict days our country was built upon. Really it should be heritage listed. In time folk will wonder what on earth people were thinking to have treated mad people like that when there will probably be drugs to fix any mental condition in a jiffy.
Walking through the C block it was hard to imagine any of the inmates would have ever got out to lead a normal life.
On the bright side, the particular asylum was ahead of the game by closing down and sort of admitting that institutionalising people was not the go.

[Simplicity]

I think what was is hard for me was the poor inmates
Twisted souls
Poor things

[artful bodger]

To go on a bit. This place was huge, there were nurses quarters, doctors quarters, invalid quarters etc,etc. I could not guess how many acres the site consists of. Many of the buildings have been destroyed.
More pics.... A couple of them are from the information boards.

[artful bodger]

I think what was is hard for me was the poor inmates
Twisted souls
Poor things


True but no doubt darstadly deeds would have been committed for one to end up here. What sort of bloodcurdling murders(or other things) one can only imagine.

[Simplicity]

Yes all to true
It's things we would rather not see or talk about.
But unfortunately these places did and still do for a reason exist

[artful bodger]

There are murder shows on every night on television. People thrive on the stuff. It gets the ratings.Plus worse things we don'[t hear about in real life.
It was not my art show. I only took pics of the buildings. But surely photography is meant to convey a message of sorts. Was hoping to do just that.

[Repliconics]

You've got some very interesting and poignant photos there.
Not to everyone's taste I'm sure.
But thought provoking never the less.

Have you considered changing some of the shots to B/W.
The last three in particular would come up very well with higher contrast and a little sharpening.
Making for an even colder more stark image.

On a similar note.
While driving around a few months ago I came across a collection of toys and flowers on the side of the road.
They obviously marked the sight of a tragedy sometime in the past.
The collection of objects was weathered and tattered from time and the elements.
It made for a very emotional image.

Although I took the shot and have since printed it in B/W, I would never display the image in public.
I personally think it's one of the best photographs I've ever taken from an artistic standpoint.
However the effect it could have on those with a personal connection to the event far outweighs any value it has as art.
Sometimes art and sensibility can make for very strange bed fellows!.
But at the same time an interesting discussion!.

Cheers
Trev.

[Pac man]

Thank you for your photos.

In response to Simplicity's post I always tread lightly and be mindful where I park in NSW mental health institutions as there are many un marked graves. Cumberland hospital will soon be sold off and redeveloped it will no doubt reveal some of this history.

i appreciate that there were those that undertook dastardly deeds but early mental institutions were also a social dragnet for the poor and the forgotten. Remember the approach was to hide the misfits from society. It is observed that some staff whilst not all may have been as dastardly as some of the patients.

[Treecycle]

Being such a large property it will probably just continue to fall into disrepair and never be suitable for other uses. Unfortunately it would be very hard to find an organisation big enough to make good use of the premises.
The staff quarters look very stately but I assume it will go the same way as the rest.
Interesting how all the window sills on the inside are rounded. I assume that is so the inmates could not get a foot hold to get up to the windows.

[crowie]

Even with what folk have said, it'd be a very interesting historical place to walk around; I'd place in a similar category to that of Port Arthur....

[artful bodger]

Even with what folk have said, it'd be a very interesting historical place to walk around; I'd place in a similar category to that of Port Arthur....

It was an interesting place to walk around and left you with a lingering aftertaste. In fact it seemed more brutal than Port Arthur to me.
Perhaps I should have realised this is a woodworking forum not an art forum and photographs posted here should be of a completely non confrontational nature. Judging from replies.
On the other hand, thousands and thousands of people went to the art show that was on there that particular weekend and I reckon it had an impact on a good percentage of folk who went. There were no cries of protest in the local newspapers afterwards.
Guess it depends what photography is all about?.
It was actually a subject when I was studying art at Uni and reckon it still would be.

[Christos]

The feelings that I have after looking at the photos is of rebuilding and cleaning up the site.

There will always be some place that has been abandoned and left to decay as the original use would have changed etc. This seems to be the case with this building. :dunno:

I am not sure on the particular type of art that that might have been on display. If it was a similar theme as to the building/location or a contrast. It would take a very powerful piece to provoke a sense of happiness in such a location.

[DSEL74]

People didn't have to do much to end up in these sort of institutions.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160711/a505be07e08071432c8b99b0adba3f5b.jpg

Some of the things used as treatments were also the same methods used to torture/interrogate people some worse. It makes you wonder.

[Kuffy]

some of those reasons are real eyebrow raisers.
"laziness", "female disease", "imaginary female trouble", but the one I LOL'ed at was "kicked in the head by a horse"

[artful bodger]

The feelings that I have after looking at the photos is of rebuilding and cleaning up the site.

There will always be some place that has been abandoned and left to decay as the original use would have changed etc. This seems to be the case with this building. :dunno:

I am not sure on the particular type of art that that might have been on display. If it was a similar theme as to the building/location or a contrast. It would take a very powerful piece to provoke a sense of happiness in such a location.

There is actually a concerted push on at the moment to get Heritage listing on the place.
As for the particular type of art on display........
The art on display was of the "Performance Art" genre by a very famous Australian performance artist by the name of Mike Parr. He sat in one of the rooms for 3 days non stop and just drew and painted continuously. People who visited the show could peer in through a small window and watch him draw (there was more to it in the end but I think you had to be there). Meanwhile there was a kind of retrospective exhibition of the artists past performance works televised on various screens through out the buildings. His performances can be quite confronting for example in one of them he gets his face sewn up into a really grotesque contorted ...well, face. In another one he has a length of dynamite cord or the like wrapped round and round his leg and then lights the cord so you can see it burn round and round his leg. The exhibition also used sound in a most unsettling way. Although I went twice both times were in the daytime however it was open all night too and I believe the night time show goers were treated to even more sounds. Smell was also used to unsettle viewers. I have a pretty strong constitution when it comes to smells (like a tannery worker etc) and found myself laughing out loud at some peoples reactions to the planted smells. Not sure the aim of the show was to provoke a sense of happiness. I do not think that is the aim of art these days .

[PabloP]

Being such a large property it will probably just continue to fall into disrepair and never be suitable for other uses. Unfortunately it would be very hard to find an organisation big enough to make good use of the premises.
The staff quarters look very stately but I assume it will go the same way as the rest.
Interesting how all the window sills on the inside are rounded. I assume that is so the inmates could not get a foot hold to get up to the windows.


More likely the rounding was to reduce the potential impact damage from them say hitting their head or other parts, as a sharp edge would cause.

Rob.

[Rum Pig]

Good set of photos. They do make you sit up and think.
I think know why they closed there doors, I think it was due to the expected over population of the facilities. I come to this conclusion because laziness was one reason listed for admission.

[artful bodger]

Good set of photos. They do make you sit up and think.
I think know why they closed there doors, I think it was due to the expected over population of the facilities. I come to this conclusion because laziness was one reason listed for admission.

That list of reasons were not actually anything to do with this particular asylum. They probably DID have their own list of qualifying reasons however I do not claim to know what they were. Perhaps they were more ridiculous?
I have just finished reading a book called "The wicked boy" that is about a young lad who murdered his mother in the late 1800's and ended up in an asylum called Broadmoor in England for a lengthy stay (maybe 16 years or so). What struck me about Broadmoor at the turn of the last century was how gently and nicely they treated the patients on the whole and encouraged them to be eventually able to fit back into society. Of course there were certain wards in the asylum where really nasty people were sent who would not have received such lenient conditions. I guess the pictures I posted are of a similar less lenient section of Willow Court. However Willow court was a big institution and some inmates were permitted to go out and mingle with the general population of New Norfolk if they chose to.
The art show that was on at Willow Court (when these pics were posted) was obviously meant to shock to some extent, which seems to be the norm in modern art.
Last week I had an hour to kill in downtown Hobart and decided to just sit in the main mall and watch people. I know it might sound strange but I am a bit of a hermit who lives in the bush and I don't really see many people during the course of a week, so it sounded like an interesting thing to do.. It did not take too long to see folk hanging around the mall who would have been housed at Willow Court if it had still been operating. I wondered where these poor folk might have been sleeping for the night or what they might be eating, or if they wished Willow court was still operating. Asylums may be scary if you go by movies like "one flew over the cuckos nest" but there surely is a more compassionate reason for them.
Perhaps I got caught up in the shock factor of modern art when I originally posted the pics.

[Cleokitty]

From the title of the thread I was expecting photos of parliament!:)