Brain Storms: Creativity and Mental Health
Join a panel of artists - including writer and podcaster Honor Eastly, novelist Sally Hepworth, photographer Daniel Regan and composer and multidisciplinary storyteller Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe - as they discuss various approaches and responsibilities when crafting creative depictions of mental health.
About
Cultural depictions of mental health can fail to grasp the complexities of its felt experience. Writer and podcaster Honor Eastly, novelist Sally Hepworth and photographer Daniel Regan have used their art to explore this issue that is at once ordinary and obscure. Whether implicitly or explicitly, their recent work engages with the reality of complex mental health experiences.
With host Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe, the panel will discuss the mechanics of representing the lived experience of mental health challenges and creating depictions that are authentic and relatable, yet free from stereotype or reduction.
This will be an expansive discussion about the ways in which art can be used to explore and better understand the nuances of mental health.
Illustration by Megan Herbert.
Presented in partnership with RMIT Culture and UNSW as part of The Big Anxiety
Please note: Honor Eastly will now appear via video link.
Accessibility
Please notify us of all access requirements when booking online so we can assist you with your visit. If you require further information, please contact reception on 03 9094 7800 or ticketing@wheelercentre.com.
The Big Anxiety
The Big Anxiety festival is the largest mental health and arts festival in the world, and promotes mental health and wellbeing through exciting arts projects that combine science and creativity. The 2022 festival will be held in October in Melbourne.
Featuring
Honor Eastly is a writer, podcaster and mental health advocate. In 2021 she was the recipient of the Australian Mental Health Prize for her work both inside and outside the mental health system. She is the writer and producer of the No Feeling Is Final podcast, a ground-breaking narrative memoir ser... Read more
Sally Hepworth is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, most recently The Younger Wife. Her novel, The Mother-In-Law (2019), has been optioned for a TV series by Hollywood actress and producer, Amy Poehler. Sally writes incisively about family, relationships and identity. Her domest... Read more
Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe is a Rwandan-British composer and multidisciplinary storyteller and broadcaster working between Narrm/Melbourne, and Rwanda. Multiple forms of synaesthesia add a neurodiverse dimension to Stephanie’s identity as a third culture individual. Stéphanie’s research-b... Read more
Daniel Regan is a UK based photographic artist exploring complex emotional experiences, focusing on the transformational impact of arts on mental health, building on his own lived experience. His work focuses on themes of wellbeing and brokers dialogue around often taboo topics. He shoots commission... Read more
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