Big Anxiety

Jill Bennett is Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. She is Founding Director of the National Institute for Experimental Arts and of The Big Anxiety Festival; and is part of the leadership team of the Ageing Futures Institute.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgements Introduction1. The Politics Of Experience, Jill BennettPart I: Suicide, Felt Experience And What Works2. Why Do Art Therapies Work?, Siri Hustvedt, with Jill Bennett 3. Edge Of The Present: Mixed Reality, Suicidality And Future Thinking, Chloe Watfern, Jill Bennett, Stephanie Habak and Katherine BoydellPart II: Culture And Experience4. Knowing From The Inside, Lynn Froggett and Noreen Giffney5. Radical Creativity: Breaking The Cycles Of Trauma, Marianne Wobcke with Jill BennettPart III: Dialogue And Embodied Encounters6. The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland and Open Dialogue in the work of Ridiculusmus, David Woods and Jon Haynes7. The Visit: A Collaborative Confabulation, Gail Kenning, Jill Bennett and Volker Kuchelmeister Part IV: Designing For Experience8. Facilitating Environments: An Arts-Based Psychosocial Design Approach, Jill Bennett, Lynn Froggett and Lizzie Muller9. I Have A Thing About Tables, Lois Weaver with Laura Hunter Petree Part V: Resistance, Racism And Decolonization10. Narratives Of Resistance From Indefinite Detention: Manus Prison Theory And Nauru Imprisoned Exiles Collective, Omid Tofighian, Behrouz Boochani, Mira* and Elahe Zivardar11. Poetic Solidarities, Claudia Rankine with Evelyn Araluen Part VI: Reparative Action12. Designing Reparations: Creative Process As Reparative Practice, Andrea Durbach, Jill Bennett and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela13. Embodimap I: Trauma Survival And Refugee Experience, Lydia GitauPart VII: Thinking In Action With Creative Resources After Trauma14. Unnerved, Anita Glesta15. Wau-mananyi: the Song on the Wind, Pantjiti Imitjala Lewis, Rene Wanun Kulitja, Angela Lynch (Uti Kulintjaku) translated by Beth Sometimes16. Embodimap Ii: An Auto-Ethnography, Sophie BurgessPart VIII: Soundwork/Earwork 17. Held Down, Expanding: An Exchange On Trauma Through Acousmatic Sound Art Practice, Thembi Soddell18. Hold Me In A Circle Of Tender Listening: Entangled Encounters With Women Survivors From The Mental Health Testimony Project Archive, Amanda McDowellPart IX: Lived Experience, Activism And Survival 19. Being Together In A Neurodiverse World: Exploring Empathy And Othering With Project Art Works, Kate Adams, Sonia Boué, Chloe Watfern20. Pathologize This, Dolly Sen21. Super-Fast Augmented Anxiety, Clive Parkinson

Through this diverse collection of provocations, Jill Bennett presents an exciting new paradigm for understanding mental wellbeing. We see how art, in its myriad forms, can be uniquely placed to explore the personal, political and spiritual dimensions of distress – and to guide us towards a deeper, more empathic response