Thursday 29 August 2019

Empathy & Experience at The Big Anxiety Festival

NATHAN FILER (UK)
23 Oct, 6.30pm | Lower Ground Floor, City of Sydney Town Hall
“There is no uncontroversial language when talking about mental illness – and that includes the phrase 'mental illness'” says Nathan Filer in his new book, The Heartland, described as an “entertaining and absorbing” exploration of the politics and experience of schizophrenia (The Guardian). The acclaimed British novelist and former mental health nurse argues that it is time to rethink mental health labels and anti-stigma campaigns.

THE EMPATHY CLINIC
27 Sept - 16 Nov, Tues-Sat 10am-5pm | UNSW Galleries
Unless we can imaginatively ‘step into someone else’s shoes’ we cannot empathise. But the empathy problem goes deeper. Neuroscientific evidence suggests that we direct empathy to people we perceive to be ‘like us’. Some of us make a conscious effort to overcome bias and stigma – but are we really comfortable with difference and diversity? Can we deal with another’s distress, or even listen effectively? The Empathy Clinic sets out to provide the practical tools, techniques and insights we need to become more empathetic.

Includes new works by Uti Kulintjaku, r e a & Judy Atkinson, Debra Keenahan, Wart, fEEL, Sherre DeLys, alongside Bobby Baker (UK), Leigh Ledare (US), Lee Lai (Can) and more.

APP: A COURSE OF EMPATHY APP
A practical tool for cultivating empathy, designed by psychologists and artists at the Felt Experience & Empathy Lab (fEEL) in conjunction with The Empathy Clinic courseofempathy.org

THESE WALLS COULD TALK
27 Sept - 3 Nov | Bradfield TAFE; & Chandos St & Atchison Lane, St Leonards
Artist Cameron Cripps-Kennedy, poet Omar Sakr and students of Bradfield College stage intimate and poetic conversations about mental health across the external walls of buildings in St Leonards.

ANXIETY OF AGEING
Meet Viv, a character created from interviews with women with dementia, in the pioneering interactive animation, Confabulations – and hear about ageing at the margins in our panel discussion, The Razz (9 Nov). Special events on ageing, emotion and community in a range of Local Government Authorities (see website for details).

UTI KULINTJAKU INITIATIVE - NEW VIRTUAL REALITY WORKS
UNSW Galleries, Paddington see The Empathy Clinic, 27 Sept - 16 Nov & Art Gallery of New South Wales, see Art After Hours, 16 Oct.

The Uti Kulintjaku [UK] initiative is an innovative, Aboriginal-led mental health literacy project that takes its name from a Pitjantjatjara phrase that means ‘to think and understand clearly’. Led by the Ngangkari traditional healers and artists of the NPY Women’s Council, UK explores mental health from both Aboriginal and Western perspectives.

Working with the Big Anxiety and fEEL, the UK team have created two new virtual reality works for The Empathy Clinic showing at UNSW Galleries, Cunningham Dax, Melbourne and in a special presentation at AGNSW’s Art After Hours.

For more information visit:  www.thebiganxiety.org

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