Ben Apfelbaum

THE BIG ANXIETY FESTIVAL : THE HEALING POWER OF THE ARTS

“Art enriches our lives, and has the ability to offer insight into mental health and wellbeing through engaging with artistic processes. Bridging Hope works to support our twin pillars of mental health and the arts, to improve the lives of those in our community.”

Tina Tien- Founder Bridging Hope Charity Foundation

Last year The Big Anxiety Festival was the winner of the Best New Event at the Australian Event Awards 2018. The University of New South Wales together with the Black Dog Institute, the Bridging Hope Charity Foundation  and some 27 other partnerships have combined to spread the  word about the  Festival throughout the  Australian community as well as internationally.

It awards a big anxiety prize to a creative thinker and this year’s award has gone to British novelist and former mental health nurse Nathan Filer.  A highlight of the Festival will be his address on the Language Of Madness at the Sydney Town Hall. on the 23rd October at 6.30pm.

The Festival itself was launched  at UNSW  Art and Design, Paddington campus by Professor Jill Bennett (UNSW), Executive and Artistic Director of the Festival, Professor Kathryn Boydell, Mental Health Lead, Black Dog Institute as well as artists experiencing external and internal disabilities, Deborah Keenahan and  John Douglas, who is also one of  8 Festival Ambassadors.

As an additional treat Rene  Kulitja  and Nyun Miti  Burton of Uti Kulintjaq  spoke and sang a snippet from their installation, ‘The Song On The Wind’.

The hub of the exhibition is  at the Gallery of the UNSW Paddington campus. It has a number of sections devoted to mental health including ‘The Empathy Clinic’, ‘Edge Of The Present’ and “Nosferatu’ (The Undead), a film by Havier Tellez.

However the Festival runs for six weeks including all of October which has been designated Mental Health month and employs s62 projects, 25 venues, 9 exhibitions and the aforementioned ambassadors.

The speakers at the launch all mentioned the benefits of engaging with art and culture. It is a potent outlet for  people suffering physical and mental anguish to express their hurt and frustration when discriminated against as well as a distraction and creative siphoning away  of the dark thoughts that they helplessly manufacture.

Further enhancing the international importance of this Festival there will be speakers from Great Britain and Singapore,

Professor Bennett was drawn to be a key organiser of the Big Anxiety Festival due to the terrible toll that mental health issues can inflict with over 70,000 Australians attempting suicide each year and with a further 3,000 dying by suicide.

To help many visitors experience what people with disabilities suffer many of the installations are immersive and  involve the use of  virtual reality glasses, surround sound spaces and the use of headphones.  As there are a limited number of glasses and headphones and installation rooms, it may be wise to investigate the possibility of booking these facilities for a specific time and date.

For further information visit http://www.thebiganxiety.org. There is  also a Facebook link facebook.com/thebiganxiety, Twitter link twitter.com/thebiganxiety, and an Instagram link instagram.com/thebiganxiety. The Festival runs from 27th September to the 9th November 2019.

Featured image- Debra Keenahan. All pics by Ben Apfelbaum

 

 

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.