E.M.D. (EXPOSED TO MORAL DANGER)

E.M.D. (exposed to moral danger), group exhibition, Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory Project, at Bethel/Kamballa (former Parramatta Girls Home buildings), 1 Fleet Street, North Parramatta, 10-18 May 2014
Curators: Alana Valentine, Lily Hibberd, Mike K Chin
Artists: Bonney Djuric, Christina Green, Elizabeth Day, Gypele Hayes, Leanne Tobin

Elizabeth Day, *ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore*, 2013-2014, still from video documentation of work-in-progress on site at Bethel House, North Parramatta. Performance image by Lucy Parkhina.

EXPOSED TO MORAL DANGER – an exhibition of artworks created by Parramatta Female Factory Precinct (PFFP) Memory Project artists.

Working from the instructional block of the former Parramatta Girls Home, PFFP Memory Project has brought together artists, historians and Parragirls in a social history and contemporary art project centred on the historic institutions of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct.

On the 9 May 1887 Parramatta Girls Home started operations as the principal child welfare institution for girls in NSW. Marking 127 years since then, this exhibition also commemorates 40 years since its closure was announced in 1974.

EXPOSED TO MORAL DANGER is the result of a yearlong engagement in interpreting the site, its legacy and the experience of institutionalisation and coincides with a season performance of Alana Valentine’s play PARRAMATTA GIRLS, Riverside Theatres.

Elizabeth Day worked on site at Bethel Orphanage 2013-2014 with former residents of Parramatta Girls Home on a number of collaborative projects and developed plans for a community garden project in the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct to mark the site as a site of conscience. During that time she developed the work ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore. The text was derived from an inscription done by one of the inmates on the wall where they were incarcerated in that building. The artwork was a grass roots cast, made on site. The cast grass roots and mould were exhibited as an installation Bethel House in E.M.D. alongside the video that documents the process of making the artwork.

This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.

Elizabeth Day, *ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore*, 2013-2014, installation: cast grass roots, mould, living grass, hessian, on site at Bethel House, North Parramatta, from exhibition *E.M.D. (exposed to moral danger)*, 2014, Parramatta Girls Home.

Elizabeth Day, *ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore*, 2013-2014, video documentation of work-in-progress on site at Bethel House, North Parramatta, from exhibition *E.M.D. (exposed to moral danger)*, 2014, Parramatta Girls Home. Performance image by Lucy Parkhina.

Elizabeth Day, *ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore*, 2013-2014, detail of installation: cast grass roots, mould, living grass, hessian, on site at Bethel House, North Parramatta, from exhibition *E.M.D. (exposed to moral danger)*, 2014, Parramatta Girls Home.

Elizabeth Day, ILWA: I Love Worship and Adore, 2013-2014, video documentation of work-in-progress on site at Bethel House, North Parramatta, from exhibition E.M.D. (exposed to moral danger), 2014, Parramatta Girls Home. Performance image by Lucy Parkhina.