Artists in Perth’s south are working to shed light and colour on the history of a Melville gallery as a former mental health institution.
Multidisciplinary artists Lisa Liebetrau and Shannon Lyons are behind this year’s TILT exhibition — an annual program run by Melville’s cultural drawcard, the Goolugatup Heathcote Gallery.
The two have co-created an exploration of the Point Heathcote mental health reception home which operated from 1929 for 65 years, treating both voluntary and involuntary patients.
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READ NOWThe site is now a southern suburbs cultural precinct and picturesque playground for families after once being home to Perth’s “mildly mentally afflicted” patients.
A push from the community when the building was originally going to be knocked down and repurposed saved it and it was re-opened after a $6 million refurbishment in 2000.
Liebetrau said the exhibition was a nod towards the treatment of patients and the harsh working conditions of the healthcare professionals.
“I was interested in the current political and social climate around nurses in WA,” she said.
“My work often looks at the past as a way to contextualise the present.
“What I want people to take away is a sense of how much goes into the work that nurses do for people and also that mental health treatment really needs better funding.”
The TILT exhibition treads behind the massive industrial action launched by healthcare workers in recent years after triple-shift horror stints and understaffing revealing the true extent of the strained industry.
“There’s a huge demand for better pay conditions for nurses, as well as mental health (support) for them,” Liebetrau said.
“I think it’s better than ever right now to respond to this site.”
The Point Heathcote mental health reception home faced its own share of controversy and scandal, including a Royal Commission in 1938 that aimed to uncover the running of the home and investigate allegations of misconduct.
The exhibition offers a “glimpse into the past” of mental health treatment, which included vastly different psychiatric care including electric shock therapy.
Liebetrau also said the project stemmed from personal experience in mental healthcare.
“The last 12 months for me has been a time of discovery for myself, going through my own medication, prescriptions and also psychiatric care,” she said.
“So I came to this artwork with a lot of empathy and care for both the patients and the nurses as someone I could understand.”
Both Liebetrau and Lyon’s work involved site-responsive installations and interventions, including a replica “observation window”, and nurses’ tea trolley.
Lyons told PerthNow it was a hand-drawn sign from Goolugatup’s days as a mental health institution that caught her eye.
“One of the images that struck me most was this very beautiful little hand-drawn sign that must have been stuck up somewhere in the hospital or in the tea room,” she said.
“ It says ‘coffee and tea 10 cents, please support your hospital’.
The Perth-based artist said it was her own experience with postnatal depression and anxiety that piqued her interest into historical mental health care.
“I have lived experience of postnatal depression and anxiety and was surprised by some of the objects that are held in the City of Melville collection, namely baby weigh scales, baby blankets and a wicker bassinet,” she said.
“I started to contact different experts in the field and gathered notes and archival material.
“There’s certain individuals who have really rosy recollections of working in those settings.
“And then there’s other people who had much harder experiences — probably further back in time — who were really put through the wringer.
“It’s had a pretty chequered history.”
Curator Brent Harrison said the exhibition stepped back in time.
“Mental health was treated a lot differently to how it is now,” he said.
“The exhibition (reveals) how far we’ve come, but also how far we need to go.”
The 2023 TILT exhibition is open until January 14, 2024.