From This Place: Remembering and Forgetting in Ballarat

Now that we've said sorry, what do we do with the heritage? Do we demolish and move on, or do we commemorate so we can move on?

Meet Phylis Read.

Phylis spent her childhood as an 'inmate' at Ballarat Orphanage. She has dedicated her life to making sure the abuse she and many other children endured is not lost within the bureaucratic debates about significance.  She wanted to tell us why she felt so strongly that the buildings of the former Ballarat orphanage site- a place where children were abused, tortured, raped and enslaved should be saved from development and made into a museum or memorial. We travelled to outback South Australia in June 2018, where she lived with her daughter and her house birds to listen to her perspective.   

In the absence of a site to remember what can people do? Be a part of the remembering. Help us build a memorial. Send images of your favourite plants to aussiesarcup@gmail.com

This episode is part one of a four-part series. This project is funded by Public Records Office Victoria. With very special thanks to Nicky Stott from 3CR and Christian Bianco at Terra Firma sound.