Image: Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery will present ‘The Fragility of Goodness: The Prison on the Landscape and Other Stories’, a survey exhibition by Elizabeth Day curated by Ann Finegan, in the Main Gallery from 16 May to 16 August 2026. The free exhibition focuses on the legacy of Empire and the colonisation of Australia and its First Nations peoples, with particular attention to the lasting impact of colonial prison systems and the ways these institutions reshaped landscape and society.
BRAG’s announcement links the exhibition closely to Bathurst’s own history as part of a network of colonial prison towns established west of the Blue Mountains. That local context frames Day’s wider investigation into penal sites and their continuing presence in Australia’s social and geographical imagination. The gallery says the project considers how prison histories remain embedded in the contemporary landscape, rather than existing solely as isolated episodes from the past.
The exhibition builds on Day’s earlier work, including ‘There’s a Reason Beyond a Reason, 1797 Parramatta Gaol’, which she presented in 2023 at The National 4 at Carriageworks in Redfern. That large-scale textile installation was made from unravelled second-hand garments and referenced early colonial prison architecture. BRAG describes the slow unravelling process as suggesting the possibility of undoing the prison’s imprint on the landscape, a concern that continues through the new survey.
According to the gallery, ‘The Fragility of Goodness: The Prison on the Landscape and Other Stories’ brings together works that connect historical penal sites including Parramatta and Tasmania, while engaging with layered colonial, geographical and social histories. Day’s practice is described as informed by both historical research and personal experience within institutional systems. Among the works named by BRAG are ‘The Law Is Not Always Just’, a new floor installation made as part of a series of grass-grown texts mapping prisons across the Central West, as well as ‘There’s a Reason Beyond a Reason’, ‘Notes on the Castle’, the sculptural recreation of Bathurst Gaol’s Lion Gate, ‘Invisible Words Invisible Worlds’ and the collaborative community project ‘MYCO LOGIC’.
The gallery’s online material also notes a cultural warning for the exhibition, advising audiences, especially First Nations Australians, that the current exhibition may contain potentially upsetting content and themes. BRAG says it is committed to providing a culturally safe and inclusive space, and points visitors to its drop-in Maker Space as a place to rest and create during opening hours.
Public programs are scheduled alongside the exhibition, beginning with Opening Night on Friday 15 May 2026 at 6pm. An Artist & Curator Talk with Elizabeth Day and Ann Finegan is listed for Saturday 16 May at 11am, followed by a program of talks, tours and workshops across the exhibition period. The exhibition is open at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 70–78 Keppel Street, Bathurst, on Wiradjuri Country.
