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Big Anxiety Research Centre
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 and the growing research base in arts and health at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.
Participatory Research & Engagement
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Keep up to date with our research and events by subscribing to our newsletter.
Subscribe opens in a new windowSkilled Companions™
Skilled Companions is our start-up company developing screen-based companions that combine conversation and psychosocial support.
Informed by lived experience, designed with communities, and driven by custom-AI. Skilled Companions fills the gap in quality support for loneliness, dementia, and mental health.
Each companion is crafted using lived experience data and grounded in psychological expertise—providing trusted, relatable support that complements the work of human carers and clinicians.
"Can AI companions help address loneliness?"
This panel discussion was held at the Why Would I Want That? Tea & Technology Café event on December 6th 2024, organised by the UNSW Big Anxiety Research Centre for the Ageing Futures Institute.
This event foregrounded researchers pioneering AI, virtual reality, robotics, immersive media and sound experiences, designed for older audiences. It provided an opportunity to discover how technology can transform our lives in ways that we want, keeping us stimulated, active and well for longer.
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 Big Anxiety Festival 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. Visit fEEL Lab for details.
- Core team
- Professional staff
Core Team
Professional Staff
Event Highlights
The Big Reach, Brisbane 2022 highlights
The Big Reach was a two-day event of creative engagements, in-depth conversations, sideshows and workshops, reimagining the future of mental health and emotional wellbeing through a creative lens.
The Big Anxiety, Naarm 2022 highlights
The Big Anxiety presented arts events tackling the major anxieties of our times, as well as the practical challenges of supporting emotional distress and trauma recovery.
The Big Anxiety – Taking Care of Mental Health in Times of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2022) brings together essays and dialogues from thinkers and artists across a range of disciplines to re-imagine approaches to crisis, support, and care.
Features artists/writers/researchers from The Big Anxiety festival including Siri Hustvedt, Claudia Rankine, Evelyn Araluen, Noreen Giffney, Lynn Froggett, Marianne Wobcke, Jill Bennett, fEEL Lab, Uti Kulintjaku.
BARC is partnering with the Australia Council for the Arts to advance policy and practice in relation to arts and mental health
This panel was broadcast live from Hanson Dyer Hall (University of Melbourne) with panelists Professor Jill Bennett, Director of The Big Anxiety Research Centre, Rachel Green, CEO of SANE Australia, Janine Mohamed, CEO of the Lowitja Institute and Jeremy Thorpe, Chief Economist at PwC and Board Member at Flourish Australia.
Contact us
UNSW School of Art & Design
Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd
Paddington NSW 2021
Australia