HM Prison Beechworth was built in stages between 1858 and 1864, using granite quarried on site. Operational until 2004, its design followed the radiating panopticon principle, intended to maximise surveillance and control. The narrative of the prison has been dominated by the optics of settler Australia, especially the exploits of the Ned Kelly gang. As Katie West and Fayen d’Evie searched for traces of the histories of others who had occupied the prison or inhabited the periphery of Beechworth, we unearthed photos of Blind Tommy, purportedly "The Last Chinaman of Beechworth". His garden overflowed with leafy cabbages. Through a durational performance, the cabbage was handled as a plant that carries the obscured stories of Chinese indentured labour, diggers, market gardeners and cooks, stories of malnourishment and abuse and deaths in custody, stories of agency and survival, and stories of the prisoners who had tilled a garden just beyond the exercise yard, also overflowing with cabbages.

This was a work of the Museum Incognita, a collaborative project of Katie West and Fayen d’Evie.

Read more about the Museum Incognita here.

Durational performance developed by Fayen d’Evie and Katie West, and performed by Katie West.

A Thousand Times the Rolling Sun

HM Prison, Beechworth
16-18 February 2018

Curated by Gabriel Curtin

Artists: L____ A_____, Ender Baskan, Tim Bučković, Jessie Bullivant, R____ C______, Bindi Cole Chocka, Gabriel Curtin, Grace Ferguson, W___ H______, Jamie Hall, Paula Hunt, The Museum Incognita (Fayen d'Evie & Katie West), Tara O'Conal, C___ P______, Steven Rhall, Isadora Vaughn and Rudi Williams.