Healing: Art & Institutional Care at La Trobe Art Institute, curated by Amelia Wallin and Jacina Leong, suggests a methodology on how galleries and exhibitions can repair complicated tensions. As part of her role as senior curator at La Trobe, Wallin has access to the Larundel Collection, containing artworks created in the Art Access Studio at the former Larundel Mental Hospital (1953-1999), on what is now the grounds of La Trobe University (Bundoora Campus). The Art Access Studio was used as a site for therapeutic relief, not as a diagnostic tool, but rather for self-directed healing.

This is the third exhibition to emerge from Wallin’s PhD research critically examining institutional care in contemporary art through reparative curating. “Ensuring that exhibitions change institutions, that you’re not just working programmatically, that you’re working structurally,” she says. Together with Leong, they explored the Larundel Collection. But she shares, “early on, we realised there might not be any of the collection in the actual exhibition, because we were mindful of the ethical nature of this terrain.” Many of the artworks are unattributed, unnamed, and therefore the artists are unable to be contacted for permission to exhibit. Instead, the focus turned to the concepts of the Art Access Studio. What did it mean to make art in this institutional setting?

Given the nature of the collection and the exhibition’s theme, Wallin and Leong employed a slow, methodical approach over a three-year period. Healing: Art & Institutional Care reflects on how institutions can present the nuanced perspective of ‘care’, especially when, in this case, a lot of the work is behind the scenes and not necessarily visible—inviting deeper acts of repair. The curators were able to meet one of the artists from the Art Access Studio, Carol Dobson, and included six of her works from the Larundel collection. “When Carol came to visit the collection, there was this real sense of pride and the sense of care in how her works had been preserved,” says Wallin.

In this way, Dobson’s connection to her artworks, the collection, and the institutional preservation offered a sense of self and even healing. Similarly, another artist from the Art Access Studio, Sue Robertson, remembers the experience of walking away from “the dehumanising, punishing carceral institution” of Larundel hospital into the art centre. Her painting in the exhibition, Three Friends (circa 1992), represents solidarity with her peers, hope, and finding healing in their ‘act of rebellion’. The curators connected with Robertson through artist Jenny Hickinbotham, who created the song and video Song to Sue, based on Robertson’s experience in the Larundel, filmed on location at the remains of the former mental hospital, to reflect on the narratives of those who suffered at these institutions.

“Graffiti tells inmates true stories, grief and

Torture, trauma, terrible cruelty, Isolation,

Shackling, heavy sedations, ECT all shocking abuses,

legally sanctioned murders, medical murders, murdered souls

behind closed doors, behind those closed walls.

… They’re touching her heart survivor’s sensory healing.”

(From Song to Sue by Jenny Hickinbotham, 2022)

Song to Sue is an example of cracking open for exposure and recognition of trauma, in order to heal. Other artworks in the exhibition propose a transcendental experience, seeking out joy while still recognising tension. Fayen d’Evie’s tapestry, Ill-formed. Cracked. Crazed. (working title) (2025) continues the exploration of the physicality of these architecture sites as she moved into the old Kew Lunatic Asylum, which is now apartments, creating the artwork just after she lost her beloved dog. Helen Johnson’s work, Residues (2022–25), considers a therapeutic context, displaying the residues on paper from her practice as an art therapist alongside her patients. Likewise, Grace Wood has three works in the exhibition that explore a collaborative approach, working with the Larundel archive and drawing on her background as a community artist, where she facilitates artmaking at Arts Project Australia. The results are mixed-media artworks that engage with the lived experience of mental health.

Alecia Neo’s installation Between Earth and Sky (2018), developed in collaboration with a community of carers, appears to float high above the audience: a moment to pause, reflect, muse on their positioning. The work features bamboo kites with fabric flown in a choreography of caregivers—images of their clothing digitally printed on the surface. In another moment for contemplation, US-based artist duo Finnegan Shannon and Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo present newly commissioned rage hug solidarity (2025–ongoing), a locally fabricated bench with printed words on the surface to create rubbings for the audience to make their own poems. The result engages audiences of all ages, while also creating intentional time with the exhibition, and providing space for peer-to-peer connection and collaborative making.

The exhibition asks how institutions can provide care—care that is deep, lasting, and extends beyond the gallery walls. Dealing with distressing content and translating it into healing, the exhibition also forms a methodology that can be repeated. Reparative curating recognises that curators may also stage encounters that acknowledge harm while actively generating new forms of care, relation, and meaning; curating spaces that encourage a slow, deep engagement. As Sue Robertson aptly writes in her artist statement for the exhibition, “Artmaking in that environment was restorative, transformative and radical; an act of rebellion, a liberatory practice which refused institutional erasure and silencing.”  A modality to be remembered, explored, and continued.

Healing: Art & Institutional Care
La Trobe Art Institute
Until 9 November