Sanism is prejudice against those with mental difference, illness and/or distress. Sanism shows up in everyday attitudes, laws and medical systems, stemming from stigma, stereotyping and superstition of a human sub-class. This exhibition, “Disrupting Sanism”, takes an anti-sanist stance that shares a story about an asylum community working, gathering and living together. It refuses the pop culture drift into voyeurism that paints asylums in constant decay and horror.
The former Ballarat Asylum was a large self-sufficient community of people, spanning 80+ hectares, in operation for over a century. This asylum is a major focus of my Creative Arts doctoral studies in history, ethnography and creative practice research. One thing I found is so obvious, so profoundly true of communities as a fundamental “known”: there is never just one point of view—a multitude of stories, experiences, memories and dreams exist; good, bad and in between. It all depends on the story/history teller and the listener.
A Ballarat Asylum story repeated in varying hues of memory concerns downtime for both patients and staff, and a place of gathering in the gardens. Today, that garden is called Central Park. Two giant sequoia (Sierra redwood) still stand in place, 140+ years old (planted circa 1880). Anecdotal and historical documentation support the possibility of people gathering in the gardens, sometimes at the base of the redwood trees for “smoko”, on their way to or from other parts of the hospital grounds. Some may have walked from their ward to the kitchens where they worked, for example, stopping for a chat and “ciggy” (cigarette) with others.
This triptych below, “Redwood Witnessing”, represents one of the redwood trees
with community gathered at its base.
Redwood Witnessing triptych
by Kendrea Rhodes
Redwood Witnessing triptych panels 1, 2, 3
©Kendrea Rhodes 2026, oil, ink, watercolour on
Saunders Waterford cold-press cotton, 56 x 76 cm
Some poetic licence is involved with the naming of the Redwood series as “witnesses” because these are paintings (!) and you, as the viewer, are the actual witness. Clearly this is metaphorical. What I aim for with “witnessing” is recognition of a base, a space and place for the disruption of sanism. I hope to add a little light to the landscape of stereotypical thinking of asylum life as utter and complete darkness.
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Other arboreal presences on the grounds of the former Ballarat Asylum include Eucalypts of many kinds, including the Red flowering and Ribbon gums. These are depicted in this exhibition as the yin and yang “Memoryscape” representations (see below). “Moondream” and “Daydream” are mirror image paintings portraying the differences in point of view, depending on the witness, the storyteller and who’s listening. They are cyclical, varying between day and night to highlight time (including CRIP & Mad time) and expectations. So too, they represent changing attitudes, emotions, conditions and life-cycles. They also ask, who is and can be counted as a witness?
Moondream & Daydream Memoryscapes
©Kendrea Rhodes 2026, oil, ink, watercolour and embroidery
on Saunders Waterford cold-press cotton 76 x 56 cm
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“Introspection” (below) is a self-portrait depicting my personal journey through my doctoral research on the former Ballarat Asylum. I am the first person that my Mad studies activism has altered—after three years of research, my eyes are more open now. I see sanism everywhere in my society, the news, social media, our laws, attitudes, language and thoughts. My own language habits still trip me up, but now I do trip, and then correct myself. My Mad studies activism includes the slow unravelling of unconscious bias that starts with me.
©Kendrea Rhodes
Introspection
©Kendrea Rhodes 2026, oil on wood, 59 x 49 cm
self portrait
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These paintings are on exhibition at Fabrik Arts & Heritage during August for the SALA festival 2026. Please visit Fabrik at the old Lobethal Woollen Mill, South Australia.