Disability activism in asylum photos

DISCUSS Victorian asylum photography in the context of disability activism at an event held at the Australian Centre for Gold Rush Collections next month.

History Matters: Picturing the Past will feature Dr Alana Harris in conversation with Dr Amanda Nettelbeck.

Dr Harris from King’s College London will present findings from her recent collaborative project, Us and Them.

The community history project unpacked the representation of disabled people in Victorian asylum photographs.

“Us and Them is a public history project and artistic collaboration exploring physical and intellectual disability and mental illness, in the past and present, to open out wider community conversations,” said Dr Harris.

She was inspired to begin the research for several reasons, including the fact she lives on the site of several former psychiatric and disability institutions.

“This recent history is conveniently forgotten by most residents and the stunning Victorian and Edwardian photographic portraits we have uncovered and reused through this project make our former neighbours’ experiences and faces, more memorable,” she said.

“They become real and present to us now, which sharpens our responsibility to ensure that they are given dignity in death.”

Dr Harris said the event will be a rich presentation which encourages attendees to think about what it means to reuse asylum photography and to restage historical photographs.

“I hope people will be encouraged to ask questions about the precarious and porous boundary, perhaps more a sliding spectrum, between ableism and disability, especially if we consider our own vulnerabilities across the lifecycle,” she said.

“We also hope to open out key questions about public history and heritage, including the role of re-enactment, the emotions, and the haptic and the ludic in communicating the power and conveying a passion for the past.”

The event will be on Thursday 11 July from 5pm. Tickets cost $10 and can be purchased on the Sovereign Hill website.