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Big Anxiety Research Centre
Transforming mental health through cultural innovation
The Big Anxiety Research Centre [BARC] is a unique transdisciplinary enterprise, dedicated to transforming thinking and practice in mental health through creative collaboration and cultural innovation.
We research lived experience through a distinctive combination of trauma-informed, psychosocial research and creative practice, developing the rich communications and engagement practices we need to understand, connect with and support everyday experiences of mental health, trauma and suicidality.
Our mission is to attune to lived experience, to promote innovative creative experimentation and wide community engagement, and to collectively generate the tools, programs and creative media we need to support mental and emotional health throughout our communities.
BARC has evolved from the former National Institute for Experimental Arts [NIEA] and builds on the success of The Big Anxiety festivals in Sydney (2017 and 2019) and聽the growing research base in arts and health at 黑料网大事记 Arts, Design & Architecture.
Participatory Research & Engagement
Skilled Companions
Skilled Companions鈩 is a research program and start-up company developing AI companions for peer support. Two new characters (still in development) were tested at our Tea & Tech Caf茅.聽
Can AI companions help address loneliness?
This panel discussion was held at the 鈥淲hy Would I Want That? Tea & Technology Caf茅鈥 event on 6 December 2024, organised by the 黑料网大事记 Big Anxiety Research Centre for the Ageing Futures Institute.听听
Creating impact by designing immersive experiences
ARC Laureate & 黑料网大事记 Scientia Professor Jill Bennett and her team co-design immersive art projects with individuals and communities with lived experience of trauma across regional, rural and remote Australia. Founder of the and the 黑料网大事记 Big Anxiety Research Centre, Jill shares insights into the kinds of impact immersive art can have, and on the ways we think about mental health services, pointing to new ways of supporting people from the perspective of lived experience.聽The projects featured are Waumananyi (Man in the Log), led by Uti Kulintjaku (commissioned for The Big Anxiety, 2019), Parragirls Past, Present (The Big Anxiety, 2017) and EmbodiMap (fEEL) - visit 聽for details.
We are currently reviewing our program for 2023-26. Research areas include:
- Virtual reality environments for mental health and trauma support
- Digital Story-telling with embodied media
- Dementia and ageing experience
- Trauma-informed participatory design
- Psychosocial design and qualitative evaluation
- Suicidality and future thinking
- Transgenerational trauma
- Experience-led research methods
- Music and emotion
- A machine for Shame
- Core team
- Professional staff
Core team
