Underfoot — The Facility

Yarra Bend Park is both beautiful and haunting.

The site has been home to an asylum, a women’s prison, a Native School, a police barracks, a girl’s home, an AIDS hospital, and more. In different ways, each of these institutions sought to regulate the body and soul to create ideal workers, citizens, and subjects.

Join local storytellers Jinghua Qian and Liz Crash as they chat about this lovely bit of Wurundjeri country where the Yarra River meets Merri Creek – and where thousands of people met grisly regimes of containment and control. It’s a story that covers 180 years of eugenics, incarceration, freedom, and resistance.

Liz and Jinghua are the creators, hosts and producers of Underfoot, a podcast and multimedia storytelling project excavating the buried past. Their first season, Underfoot 3011, focused on the secret history of Footscray and the saltwater country of the Maribyrnong, while this second season, Underfoot: The Facility, moves to the freshwater country of Yarra Bend Park.

This program is presented by 3CR Community Radio with the support of the City of Yarra, Victorian Government and Public Record Office Victoria.

If you have accessibility questions or requirements, please contact us at yarralibraries@yarracity.vic.gov.au or on 1300 695 427.