Resources
The Big Anxiety Resource page does not promote or exclusively favour any of the listed resources, but we provide them as potentially helpful resources for the community.
If you have questions about these resources, please email us or the organisation directly, where possible.
The Big Anxiety Survey
Have you attended events at The Big Anxiety festival?
Designing-in Safety Survey
Designing-in safety: how can we create comfortable and supportive space in an arts festival?
Academic article on The Big Anxiety
Psychosocial aesthetics and the art of lived experience by Jill Bennett, Lynn Froggett, Lizzie Muller in Journal of Psychosocial Studies • vol 12 • nos 1-2 • 185–201.
This article identifies the distinctive nature of arts-based psychosocial enquiry and practice in a public mental health context, focusing on two projects delivered as part of The Big Anxiety festival, in Sydney, Australia in 2017: ‘Awkward Conversations’, in which one-to-one conversations about anxiety and mental health were offered in experimental aesthetic formats; and ‘Parragirls Past, Present’, a reparative project, culminating in an immersive film production that explored the enduring effects of institutional abuse and trauma and the ways in which traumatic experiences can be refigured to transform their emotional resonance and meaning. Bringing an arts-based enquiry into lived experience into dialogue with psychosocial theory, this article examines the transformative potential of aesthetic transactions and facilitating environments, specifically with regard to understanding the imbrication of lived experience and social settings.
Interviews
Radio National – All in the Mind
Lancet Psychiatry podcast The Art of Mental Health from Nov 2017
Art and Anxiety
The Anxiety Issue of Artlink (2017)
On Art and Anxiety: ‘We Are All Anxious Now’ Tate [Issue 39: Spring 2017]
Osher Gunsberg: Australia Uncovered
Edge of the Present features at 1:06 in this 2021 SBS documentary, Osher Günsberg: A Matter of Life and Death. Osher investigates how innovative thinking, and new science and technology could help prevent suicide, while examining why suicide rates remain high in Australia and reflecting on his own mental health issues.
EmbodiMap Virtual Reality. Immersive interactive experience, 2020/21.
Hard Place / Good Place. Augmented Reality experience, demo, 2021.
The Visit. Immersive interactive VR experience, 2019. Download The Visit VR for Oculus Quest here.
Waumananyi: The Song On The Wind. Immersive experience, 2019. Trailer.
Parragirls Past, Present. Unlocking memories of Institutional care. Immersive experience, 2017. Trailer.
Edge of the Present. Immersive experience, 2019.
During the festival you may encounter artworks, experiences or events that give rise to emotions, thoughts or feelings that need to be worked through or discussed. We encourage everyone to take time to review and process these experiences for your own wellbeing.
Don’t Rush Home is a concept adapted from First Fortnight, a festival in Ireland that uses arts and culture to challenge mental health stigma while supporting vulnerable people through creative processes. The idea is that no one should leave the festival feeling upset, distressed, concerned or confused. We hope that visitors have positive and beneficial experiences, but we recognise that complex material or feelings need processing – and very often an experience is enhanced by discussion.
Don’t Rush Home is an informal invitation to share your experience, chat with our volunteers or seek out Big Anxiety staff for further engagement. We make an effort to recruit and deploy volunteers at our main events/exhibitions for this purpose.
Don’t hesitate to make contact – and if you can’t find a volunteer, venues should be able to connect you with our staff. The festival director is keen to connect with you if you’d like to talk.
Finally, it is important to maintain healthy boundaries for the health and safety for yourself and those around you. If at any time you are feeling uncomfortable, please feel free to chat with a volunteer or staff member.
The ‘Don’t Rush Home’ guide is available HERE to download.
Procedure
We take our duty of care seriously for all those participating in the festival. The procedure below, developed in consultation with our Mental Health Lead and advising clinicians, sets out the formal process visitors, staff and volunteers should follow if they are in distress, wish to process experience or are simply wanting to chat.
Note staff is used below to refer to both venue and festival staff, as well as all artists, academics, creatives etc. contracted by The Big Anxiety festival.
Attendee wanting to debrief/process their experience at TBA
If the festival raises issues that need discussion and you do NOT need immediate specialist assistance
- Talk to one of our friendly volunteers, wearing the black Awkward Conversations t-shirts/pink lanyards, or staff before you leave.
- If no volunteer is present, talk to venue staff. You do not need to be in distress or making a complaint to do this. Don’t Rush Home means that you’re welcome to ask for a chat any time!
Attendee needing assistance
If immediate assistance IS required
- Talk to a volunteer or staff member. If you can’t see a volunteer or staff member, see Front of House at all venues who can put you in touch.
- Volunteers/staff will (where appropriate) provide you with a contact for a 24/7 counselling service; take you to a quiet space and/or seek further professional support. For some events, we will have professionals on site, such as counsellors or members of our mental health clinical advisory group. Volunteers can direct you to these professionals or help you find other support.
- If you are in crisis, a volunteer will direct you to a member of staff who will assist you in accessing appropriate medical support, or if necessary, call 000.
Attendee wanting to give feedback
Leave written feedback via the feedback form available at the venue front desk or from volunteers.
NOTE: this form is for feedback requiring attention. It is not an event survey. Feedback is followed up by The Big Anxiety staff in all instances and if necessary, referred to our mental health clinical advisory group.
The Big Anxiety is committed to cultural safety. This entails ensuring a space in which First Nations people can safely talk about experience. First Nations artists, trauma-workers and community leaders are central to our program and make an important contribution. We invite participants to listen compassionately to their experiences with awareness of how our own cultural values, knowledge, skills and attitudes are formed and affect others. This includes a responsibility to address unconscious bias, racism and discrimination. For further information, see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety.
The Big Anxiety respects individual preferences for either ‘identity first’ language (eg. “I am an autistic artist/person”) or ‘person first’ language (“I am an artist/person with autism”).
We actively endorse the neurodiversity movement and the view that neurological difference reflects natural variation rather than deficit. As such we follow the lead of participating artists who use identity first language in relation to autism as a means of affirming and validating autistic experience. This position is outlined in the following articles:
Download our 12 Points About Anxiety [PDF] written by Professor Jill Bennett
Take the Black Dog Institute Anxiety Self Test
“Getting Help” including clinics and self help tools visit Black Dog Institute website
Independent Mental Health Advocacy
www.imha.vic.gov.au
Call 1300 947 820 to speak to an advocate about your rights and for support to speak up about your assessment, treatment and recovery. Call 1800 959 353 to hear a free recording of your rights under the Mental Health Act 2014. This phone line is available 24 hours a day.
Black Dog Institute
www.blackdoginstitute.org.au
Fact sheets for consumers, families and careers mental illness. Anonymous validated screening tools for identifying depression and bipolar disorder.
myCompass
www.mycompass.org.au
An anonymous, confidential online support program shown in research trials to reduce the symptoms of moderate depression over 8 weeks of use; the tool tracks recovery and response to treatment as well as providing self-directed interventions.
SANE
www.SANE.org
1800 187 263
Factsheets on illnesses and treatments as well as a phone line for advice on local support groups and facilities.
Man Therapy
https://mantherapy.org/
For men wanting to check out their mental health and get advice on getting help.
Lifeline
13 11 14
For anyone having a personal crisis. 24-hour telephone counselling, information and referral service.
Mensline Australia
1300 789 978
24-hour support for men dealing with family and relationship problems.
Foundation House
A specialist refugee trauma agency supporting survivors of torture and other traumatic events to rebuild their lives
(03) 9389 8900
STARTTS
startts.org.au
A specialist organisation supporting people and communities heal the scars of torture and refugee trauma and rebuild their lives in Australia
(02) 9646 6700
Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)
jrs.net/en/programme/psychosocial-support
Offers mental health and psychosocial support to forcibly displaced people
(02) 9356 3888
House of Welcome
houseofwelcome.org.au
Provides welcome, shelter and support for refugees and people seeking asylum
(02) 9727 9290
Anglicare
anglicare.org.au/what-we-offer/mental-health/community-living-supports-for-refugees/
Anglicare Mental Health and Community Living Supports for Refugees provides support to refugees and asylum seekers who are experiencing mental health challenges.
1300 111 278
Beyond Blue
1300 224 636
Information on depression, anxiety and related disorders, available treatments and where to get help.
Carers Australia
1800 242 636
Family carer support and counselling.
Relationships Australia
1300 364 277
Relationship support and counselling service for individuals, families and communities.
Suicide Call Back service
1300 659 467
24-hour telephone counselling service for those at risk of suicide, carers of someone who is suicidal and those bereaved by suicide.
Reach Out
www.reachout.com.au
Online youth mental health service. Expert generated mobile-friendly site and forums.
Bite Back
www.biteback.org.au
BITE BACK developed by the Black Dog Institute is an online space for young people which promotes resilience.
Kids Helpline
www.kidshelp.com.au
1800 551 800
1800Respect
1800 737 732
For anyone with experience of family violence
Qlife
1800 184 527
LGBTIQ+ individuals
RMIT – Student urgent mental health support
1300 305 737
For RMIT students
RMIT EAP – Benestar
1300 360 364
For RMIT Employees
If feedback cannot be resolved through the internal feedback process, it will be referred to the UNSW Complaint Management Policy and guidelines. Please refer to the following documents.
UNSW Complaint Management Policy
https://www.gs.unsw.edu.au/policy/documents/complaintmanagementpolicy.pdf
UNSW Complaint Management Procedure
https://www.gs.unsw.edu.au/policy/documents/complaintmanagementprocedure.pdf