Beechworth Asylum history explored at Wangaratta Art Gallery
Published on 09 April 2026
An exhibition opening on Friday 17 April at Wangaratta Art Gallery will explore the history of the former Beechworth Asylum through the lens of contemporary art. Ruins in Reverse by Melbourne-based artist Carly Fischer is a sculptural and sound-based installation that draws inspiration from the former asylum and the artist’s great‑grandmother, who spent five decades institutionalised for ‘talking to the furniture.’
The work explores ideas of disconnection and change, looking at how the remaining materials and sounds of the asylum building can tell new stories about memory and place. By closely examining the site’s physical features, the installation shows how architecture can shape how we feel and experience a space.
The artist brings together research, sound recordings and observations from Beechworth’s architectural, institutional, geological and mining histories, combining them into sculptural forms that blend sound and material. The result is an immersive work that invites audiences to reflect geological, industrial, and cultural histories.
Initially presented at the Beechworth Biennale 2024 in the Chapel of the Resurrection, the asylum’s former morgue, Ruins in Reverse invited viewers to engage with the site’s material afterlives. Recontextualised at Wangaratta Art Gallery, the installation extends these stories across place, connecting Beechworth and Wangaratta through shared waterways, industries and histories. Linked by the tributaries of the Ovens catchment, these landscapes carry resonances of extraction, agriculture, and textile production. This textile history was the setting for the Wangaratta Ladies Auxiliary, who were formed to support the Beechworth Asylum, contributing to the comforts of patients through weaving furnishings for rooms.
Wangaratta Art Gallery Director, Rachel Arndt says:
“Having this unique exhibition here in Wangaratta is incredibly valuable. The former Beechworth Asylum and the Mayday Hills precinct have long captured the interest of both the local community and visitors. Once a place of distress and trauma, it now hosts a thriving arts community with remaining buildings occupied by artist studios and galleries. This exhibition offers a meaningful opportunity for the community to reconnect with the site’s remnants and its difficult stories - an important part of our shared history.”
Carly Fischer has been working as a contemporary artist for over twenty-five years. She completed a Master of Fine Art in 2015 at Monash University, and has exhibited in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Japan, the U.S. as well as across Australia, through solo, group and collaborative projects and residencies. Her installations draw on the overlooked details and hidden histories of specific places. In her process she first gathers information by wandering, field recording, and conducting archival research, then creating sculptural works that blur boundaries between form, material, and context. Her assemblages merge found object fragments with subtle reconstructions to complex dialogues of various environments.
The artist will be talking about her practice on Friday 17 April from 5pm before the official opening celebration at 5.30pm. All welcome.
The exhibition will run from 18 April - 14 June in Gallery 2.