Coda to Lust, Legislation, Lunacy.

Act 4: Coda to Lust Legislation Lunacy

A personal reflective Coda to describe the way episodes in my early life intersected with some of the life experiences of Wards of the State during the time of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1920-1963.

Act 3 Lust, Legislation, Lunacy

Asylums, eugenics and the biased judicial system depict the dire consequences for some wards in the welfare system. After 1963 Mental Health Act,  immoral behaviour was no longer a mental disorder, but the last ward did not leave the asylum until 1985.  

Act 2 Lust, Legislation, Lunacy

The ways that girls could be committed as wards, their time in Industrial schools and in service and the focus on aspects of sexuality. 

Voices from the Archive. Lust, Legislation, Lunacy.

The 3 acts are selected archival voices that depict the emergence of promiscuity as a mental disorder in Tasmania. 100 years ago, a pregnant ward of the state could be sent to the asylum for being a 'moral imbecile' under the 1920 'Mental Deficiency Act'. A narrator provides essential context for the voices taken from files, conferences, judicial hearings, newspapers, science, medicine, charities and policy makers. The first Act follows the life experiences of Mary a ward for 27 years.