28 May 2022

FREE EVENT

BOOK HERE for Awkward Conversations

MORE INFO HERE for Awkward Conversations

Bookings February will now be valid in May

No bookings required for other events.

VENUE: QUT Gardens Theatre, Gardens Point Precinct, 2 George Street, Brisbane QLD

About

Awkward Conversations

Awkward Conversations offers one-on-one conversations in experimental formats, tackling anxieties, habits and hard-to-talk about subjects like mental health. Sometimes the best conversations are awkward. What if you say the wrong thing? What if you make too much eye contact? Or not enough? What if nothing is spoken at all? Or your conversational partner is unlike anyone you have ever met before? To participate in this event you must be 18+. Curated by QLD artist and art therapist Daniele Constance and Nathan Stoneham, performer & cultural development artist. Online bookings required for Saturday Open Day only. The Big Reach participants on Thu, Fri can book through the ticketing process. More info here & bookings here

Edge of the Present

Edge of the Present is a ‘mixed reality’ (virtual and physical) environment designed to cultivate future thinking. Inspired by neuropsychological research into the workings of memory and imagination, and made in collaboration with psychologists, mental health specialists and participants with lived experiences of suicide survival, this compelling immersive experience invites us to ‘invent the next ten minutes’ – something that is a challenge when we find ourselves inhabiting the ‘edge of the present’. More Info & Bookings here

Body Mapping

Body Mapping: Create a Life Sized Body Map, led by a team from the Black Dog Institute. In this dynamic workshop, you’re invited to explore experiences of anxiety and other emotional states manifested in our bodies. Participants will be led through a series of meditative and creative activities based on the tenets of mindfulness and positive psychology and create their own life-sized body map to take home. 10am – 12:30pm. No bookings required.

Immersive VR

Immersive VR: fEEL Lab, the felt Experience and Empathy Lab at UNSW presents 5 different VR & AR experiences.

Parragirls Past, Present is a deeply moving immersive experience, presenting former residents’ visions of the Parramatta Girls Home today. A collaboration between five former “Parragirls” and a team of media artists/researchers, this work is the first ever 3D immersive film production to address childhood experiences of institutional abuse. Developed during the last two years of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Parragirls Past, Present literally unlocks memories of institutional ‘care’ that have until now been considered unrepresentable, giving voice to the ‘unspeakable’ history of Forgotten Australians and Stolen Generations. More info here. Showing on screen in The Cube and in VR form. No bookings required.

EmbodiMap is a therapeutic/research tool that enables users to engage with and map their feelings, thoughts and emotions and how these are experienced within the body. Supporting fEEL’s research into felt experience, and drawing on insights from somatic and sensori-motor psychotherapy, EmbodiMap invites participants to engage with a virtual 3D facsimile of the body, entering inside this form and using the tool to paint sensations as they are experienced inside the body. An advance on technologies/media that allow only surface drawing, EmbodiMap promotes a palpable, interactive engagement with the ‘avatar’ body. More info here No bookings required.

Hard place/Good place is a creative research project, focusing on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’, through a collection of personal and community stories, told through Augmented Reality [AR] experiences. Inspired by works such as Parragirls Past, Present*  the AR works each explore the lived experience of place, comprising a spoken personal ‘lived experience’ narrative (up to 15 minutes) and 3D immersive experience of moving through that place, led by the recorded voice of the story-teller. The AR experience is viewed on iPhone or tablet and created by 3D scanning of the place/location that features in the narrative. AR involves overlaying digital information (the scanned image) onto a real-world environment, with the effect that space in front of the viewer appears to be transformed. More info here No bookings required.

The Visit is an immersive interactive real-time video installation, developed from a ground-breaking research project conducted by artists and psychologists working with women living with dementia. The Visit explores their experiences of the way in which people perceive and interact with those with a diagnosis. Visitors are invited to sit with Viv, a life-sized, photorealistic animated character, capable of directly engaging with a viewer. We meet Viv as she talks about her life, her health and her concerns. No bookings required.

Waumananyi: The Song on the Wind by Uti Kulintjaku (with fEEL) – an Anangu-led response to the experiences of constraint, entrapment, and depression through the traditional story (or ‘tjukurpa’) of ‘The Man in the Log’. Waumananyi is an innovative VR artwork used in remote communities in the APY Lands. More info here No bookings required.