Footsteps and corridors: Applying Mad Studies and creative practice to the Ballarat Asylum’s fragmented history.

This paper employs interdisciplinary, multimodal, creative practice to explore the fragmented histories of the Ballarat Asylum. From a Global South perspective, Kendrea uses her privileged social and academic positions to uphold Mad Studies values that include the sharing of Mad stories and Mad histories. The Ballarat Asylum remains relatively silent when compared to other Australian asylums currently experiencing historical, fictional, architectural, and dark tourism fame. The Ballarat Asylum’s buildings were largely demolished in the 1990s, amplifying feelings of erasure and removing the possibility to physically reclaim it as a site of trauma. With few physical reminders and little or no historical memorialisation, the Ballarat Asylum is rapidly fading from history. This is a creative nonfiction multimedia presentation that incorporates archival research, autoethnographic life writing, poetry, visual and digital artwork, original audio and video creative content, and historic imagery.