Only Open Wed – Fri.
The Dax Centre
30 Royal Parade
Kenneth Myer Building
University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
VENUE: The DAX Centre
The Dax Centre is hosting two works by Uti Kulintjaku exploring mental health and healing from Aboriginal perspectives, created by this acclaimed collective project.
The Big Anxiety Commission – World Premiere.
Uti Kulintjaku [UK] is an innovative, Aboriginal-led mental health literacy project that takes its name from a Pitjantjatjara phrase that means ‘to listen, think and understand clearly’. Formed from the Ngangkari traditional healers and artists of the NPY Women’s Council, the UK initiative addresses community issues of mental health from both Aboriginal and Western perspectives. “What makes (the UK project) especially compelling”, writes Kim Mahood in The Monthly, “is that it provides a framework for a conversation about the underlying psychological forces that drive human behaviour.”
Working with the Big Anxiety and fEEL, the Uti Kulintjaku team have created two new virtual reality works, sharing their healing practices through creative visualisation, including Waumananyi: The Song on the Wind an Anangu-led response to the experiences of constraint, entrapment, and depression through the traditional story (or ‘tjukurpa’) of ‘The Man in the Log’.
About The Dax Centre
The Dax Centre’s mission is to advance the understanding of mental health issues and reduce stigma through art. The exhibitions and educational programs engage, inform and encourage community connections and conversations about mental health. The Dax Centre includes a gallery space, education programs and also houses the Cunningham Dax Collection.
Image credit: Rhett Hammerton
This project is supported by Oranges & Sardines Foundation.
The NPY artist team includes:
This Anangu-led project is a collaboration between NPY Women’s Council and fEEL
Rene Wanuny Kulitja
Pantjiti Imitjala Lewis
David Miller
Pantjiti Unkari McKenzie
Naomi Kantjurinyi
Ilawanti Ungkutjuru Ken
Nyunmiti Burton
Margaret Smith
Theresa Nipper
Tjulapi Alison Carroll
Niningka Lewis
Roy Yaltjanki
Johnny Jingo
fEEL team: Volker Kuchelmeister, Jill Bennett, Lisa Stefanoff, Bec Dean with Leah Barclay
Image Credit: Nyunmiti Burton and Pantjiti Lewis at NPY Uti Kulintjaku VR workshop, Alice Springs, 2019. Photo: Rhett Hammerton
Collaborating Artists
Volker Kuchelmeister (Collaborating VR artist) is lead immersive designer and research fellow at the UNSW felt Experience and Empathy Lab (fEEL). He is an expert in presence, embodiment and place representation for immersive applications and has worked extensively in cinematography, interactive narrative, experimental imaging, spatial mapping, interactive systems, immersive visualisation and in the performing arts, exploring and exploding the boundaries of the cinematic image. His work at fEEL includes collaborations with Debra Keenhan (on the embodied experience of disability) and Uti Kulintjaku (NPY Women’s Council), as well as the Confabulations project for The Big Anxiety. For the 2017 Big Anxiety festival he was lead immersive designer on Parragirls Past, Present. He has established and directed leading media-art research labs (ZKM Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe Germany – Multimedia Studio; UNSW iCinema Centre Media Lab and the UNSW National Institute for Experimental Art – and his interactive installations and experimental video projects are exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals around the world.
Leah Barclay (Collaborating Sound Artist) creates complex sonic environments that draw attention to changing climates and fragile ecosystems. These works are realised through immersive live performances, interactive installations and virtual reality experiences drawing on environmental field recordings, live streaming audio and spatial sound diffusion. Her work has been commissioned, performed and exhibited to wide acclaim internationally by organisations including the Smithsonian Museum, UNESCO, Ear to the Earth, Streaming Museum, Al Gore’s Climate Reality and the IUCN. Leah’s augmented reality sound installations have been presented across the world from Times Square in New York City to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Leah is the president of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology, the vice-president of the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology and serves on the board of a range of arts and environmental organisations. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre where she is leading a portfolio of research in acoustic ecology and climate change.