Parkside Lunatic Asylum

I don't go from photo to tapestry. There's usually a long stretch in between - reading, records, half-formed threads, most of which never make it onto a loom. This is where those go. Not curated for the work. Just kept.

First entry: the Parkside Lunatic Asylum. Public Colonial Lunatic Asylum of South Australia. Parkside Mental Hospital. Glenside Hospital. Renamed every few decades, presumably to outrun what the last name meant.

The clocktower has housed the South Australian Film Corporation since 2011. I work there. Which is the actual reason I know this place the way I do - not one site visit with a camera, but a couple of years of being here, of wandering around and listening.

Threshold: Basement came out of the basement under the clocktower. I went looking for what it was used for, expecting - honestly - something! Restraint records, isolation, anything with weight. What I found instead was a handful of vague references to general storage. No incident reports. No death certificates. Just a basement that was, apparently, a basement. I spent longer confirming that than I'd like to admit, and I'm still not sure I believe it.

The piece has been in two prizes so far - the 2025 Tatiara Art Prize, and currently the Gallery M Contemporary Art Prize, where it won the 2D Merit Award.

There's more from this building than fits in one post. The stories staff tell each other. A couple of things I've noticed myself, that I still don't have a tidy explanation for. Those will turn up later, in smaller pieces, when they're relevant - not because they're the point. This one's just the start of the record.