Watt Space Gallery
CURRENT EXHIBITION
FINDING HOME
Life Outside Institutions
08 July – 12 September 2026
Led by women and reliant on voluntary work, charitable donations and some government funds, mental health aftercare associations differed from other forms of post-institutional care in their personal approach to mental health support. Their histories are only partially told or remembered. The thousands of women, men and families who were helped by aftercare have also been invisible in the historical narrative of mental health care in Australia.
This exhibition tells their stories by drawing from a rich set of archival material to evoke the spaces of care and the varied experiences of individuals who sought help. It shines new light on twentieth-century journeys between hospital and home for people leaving institutions. By turning to the past, we can reflect on how to approach mental health care in our present.
This research was fully supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme – DP240100640 Life Outside Institutions: histories of mental health aftercare 1900 to 1960.
This research is also supported by STRIDE – For Better Mental Health.
IMAGE: Interior Of Women’s Ward, Goodna 1913, Reproduced Courtesy of The State Library Of Queensland, Image No. Ape-045-0001-0029
PREVIOUS EXHIBITION
Michael Cusack
FIELD NOTES: The Ruins of Ideas
8 May – 27 June 2026
Field Notes: The Ruins of Ideas assembles a suite of works that are not ascribed as finished pronouncements, referencing instead ‘notes’ – observations made in passing, marks made from thinking, and noticing the relationships between ground and pigment. Paint here behaves like soil or sediment, layered and compressed and colour feels gathered rather than chosen. These works emerge from a place where ideas are not produced on demand, but weathered and wrought into being by time, labour, and repeated attention.
Bringing together painting and found objects as parallel modes of inquiry, the works operate as provisional records – concepts, materials, and gestures unfold through accumulation and revision. In this ongoing encounter, gestures remain visible and rather than arriving at fixed meanings, the works hold open a space in which perception can unfold over time.
Field Notes proposes the exhibition itself as a working field: a place where ideas remain open, contingent, and responsive to their context.
You can download a digital copy of the catalogue here: FIELD NOTES The Ruins of Ideas Catalogue
IMAGE: Michael Cusack Swinburne, 2006, oil and graphite on canvas, 183 x 167 cm. Donated by Michael Cusack to the University of Newcastle through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program.
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The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.