with beyondblue

Wash Day Blues

celebrating the resilience of Tasmanian women

Washday Blues began life as an installation at the Rosny Historic Site to celebrate International Women's Day 2005 in conjunction with Senior Momentum's Quilting the Blues exhibition at the Schoolhouse Gallery. People came to a workshop to talk about the resilience of Tasmanian women, from the convict days until the present. They wrote their story on a cut-out garment shape, which was then pegged to a clothesline to blow in the breeze.

A simple, but highly effective and visually arresting performance, it was soon repeated and before long took on a life of its own. A series of approximately twenty workshops was held between March 2005 and March 2006. An installation was set up at Salamanca Square for Mental Health Week 2005, at Willow Court in New Norfolk for Ten Days on the Island in April 2005, and by the time it was installed at the Female Factory for International Women's Day in March 2005 it consisted of more than 150 pieces.

The stories were taken from official records, personal experience, family history or anywhere else; they were written by individuals or groups; but each told a different tale of coping with adversity and depression.