Sanctuary
Group Exhibition
‘Let Me Out’
Abbotsford Convent
Director, Producer, Editor, Costume
A silent short projected onto a screen composed of cotton sheets at The Abbotsford Convent, Magdalen Asylum Laundry.
Projected onto the walls of the historical Magdalen Asylum laundry, this film presents three young women breaking free of the grounds, revealing in dirt and exploring the open air of the Australian bush. The experience is a stark contrast to the clammy environment of the laundries in which the women worked.
Long days spent scrubbing soiled hotel sheets for board was regarded as a way of repenting their ‘sins’ and cleansing the soul by returning the sheets to white, the symbol of purity. Their fleeting act of freedom and youthful rebellion is soon forgotten when they retreat to their old ways. Together they take to the cold lake to scrub the mud out of their whites in a last act of conditioned repentance?