SHOWCASE PROJECT
BIG ANXIETY FESTIVAL 2019
The Nelson Meers Foundation supported The Big Anxiety Festival 2019. The Big Anxiety was an initiative of UNSW Sydney in association with the Black Dog Institute and other partners in the cultural, education and health sectors. This festival brought together artists, scientists and communities to question and re-imagine the state of mental health in the 21st century.
A radically new kind of international arts festival, in which every project is an open conversation, designed to promote curiosity, awareness and action, The Big Anxiety presented events across Sydney, tackling the major anxieties of our times, as well as the stresses and strains of everyday life. Whether through hi-tech interactive environments or one-on-one dialogues, their goal was to create the rich engagements we need for our collective mental health.
CONVERSATION
BUKU-LARRNGGAY MULKA ART CENTRE: DIGITAL LEARNING CENTRE
The Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre is the Indigenous community controlled art centre of Northeast Arnhem Land, located in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community on the north-eastern tip of the top end of the Northern Territory. Their mission is to sustain and protect Yolngu cultural knowledge in Northeast Arnhem Land under the leadership of community members. The Mulka Project opened the door to its new digital learning centre on July 31st 2015. Within its first week the community elders renamed the Yirrkala Digital Learning Centre 'Yalu' which is dhuwal language for 'nest'. The Nelson Meers Foundation is a founding supporter of the Yalu, providing support for a Digital Learning Co-ordinator to manage the Digital Learning Centre and guide visitors through the Yolngu digital archive.
CASE STUDY
URBAN THEATRE PROJECTS: BLAK BOX - A 'TOURABLE' SPACE FOR FIRST NATIONS STORIES
Blak Box is stripped back storytelling - up-close and personal in a surround sound environment. Blak Box embraces the First Peoples concept of ‘deep listening’. In NSW, the word for deep listening is Ngara. In the Yorta Yorta language of the Murray River in Victoria it is Gulpa Ngawal. An Indigenous understanding of deep listening is based on stories, silences and the spaces that lie between.
Blak Box will play ‘home’ to commissioned works and stories by First Peoples artists as part of UTP’s B-Side program.