Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
The sleeping quarters were intact (well-behaved -or lucky- guys got the 60 hammocks; another 40-60 slept on the floor with the rats).
Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
including the church that still stands just across the street from the barracks.
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and also showed the work done by prisoners: quarrying stone,
Elaine-Joan:
and sawing logs for construction,
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clearing forest land,
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Extraordinary dioramas contributed histories of the brutal interactions with the aboriginal peoples.
Elaine-Joan:
Elaine focused on more "confined" spaces: this was the size of a solitary confinement cell).
Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
This was part of the "transportation system" of populating Australia with British prisoners.
Elaine-Joan:
If you want to be haunted by this story, read "The Fatal Shore".
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Finally, a very high-tech projection filled a room with the changing landscape of Sydney
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from port of call in the 19th century to a growing city at the beginning of the 20th.
Elaine-Joan:
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Elaine-Joan:
Hyde Park was not the worst of the prison system. This was the hospital for male prisoners, later a dormitory for "indigent" Irish girls shipped off to Sydney.
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until you looked closer.
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An exhibit of their clothing looked quite respectable,
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The rats were a problem for them, too. This was a prayer book (chewed by rats).
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Aboriginal voices are heard from state-of-the-art holograms
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and family stories
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as they told personal stories
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and even a story by a Jamaica-born Canadian who traced a prisoner shipped to Hyde Park Barracks for leading a slave rebellion in Jamaica.
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and Elaine went to prison. The Hyde Park Barracks, to be exact.