Big Anxiety Research Centre

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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 the growing research base in arts and health at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.

Participatory Research & Engagement

BARC supports The Big Anxiety - one of the world’s largest mental health arts festivals and an ongoing engagement program. Founded in Sydney 2017, The Big Anxiety is a national festival, staged in both Queensland (Brisbane and Warwick) and Melbourne in 2022.

BARC incorporates the ARC Laureate Felt Experience & Empathy Lab (fEEL). The lab brings together specialists in immersive media, participatory design, trauma studies and psychology to advance new methods in the study of embodied subjective experience.

emLAB

BARC incorporates emLAB: the ethnographic media LAB, which brings together a community of researchers and practitioners working at the intersections of media, technology, ethnography and art.

Is it really possible to address loneliness through AI?

The answer, say UNSW researchers, is a resounding yes, with their digital companions set to play a key role.

Nov 26, 2024

Latest

Virtual reality project healing Indigenous trauma receives $2.8m MRFF grant

The funding will further the development of innovative virtual reality tools to enable regional and remote communities to address trauma.

Oct 11, 2024

Latest

Meet Viv: an AI character fostering companionship for people with dementia

With a view to improving the lives of people living with dementia, UNSW researchers have come up with a world-first: an AI driven companion.

Nov 30, 2023

Latest

Can AI companions help address loneliness?

This panel discussion was held at the “Why Would I Want That? Tea & Technology Café” event on 6 December 2024, organised by the UNSW Big Anxiety Research Centre for the Ageing Futures Institute.��

Creating impact by designing immersive experiences

ARC Laureate & UNSW 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 UNSW 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. 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 for details.

Find out more

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

Jill Bennett

Scientia Professor & Australian Research Council Laureate

Director

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