Marianne Wobcke and Volker Kuchelmeister. Juried Artist
Tue 25 June
Artist Statement
Perinatal Dreaming is a ground-breaking virtual reality experience developed by fEEL felt Experience and Empathy Lab (University of New South Wales Sydney) and led by artist midwife and nurse and trauma support workerMarianne Wobcke. As one of thousands of Indigenous children forcibly removed from her mother at birthMarianne has spent her career researching and supporting perinatal and intergenerational trauma focusing especially on work with mothers and babies. The VR artwork presents a visually stunning immersive audio-visual experience evoking early life in the womb and entry into the world taking us through experiences the ‘good’ and ‘toxic’ womb and first encounters with breast skin and the world. Designed as a unique art experience the piece can also be used in conjunction with therapeutic work.
About the artists
With maternal connections to Girrimay mob from North Queensland born on Turrbal landMarianne Wobcke is a nurse midwife and award-winning artist. Her program of culturally connected birthing practices and trauma recovery is grounded in radical creativity aiming to break the cycles of trauma that are the inheritance of colonial violence in Indigenous Australian communities.
Marianne is the 2021 recipient of the Australia Council Ros Bower Award for Community Arts and Cultural Development. She is currently a PhD Candidate with Griffith University’s School of Health Sciences & Social work and QCA – conducting arts/health based research.
Professor Jill Bennett is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW)where she is also Director of the National Institute for Experimental Arts and Founding Director of The Big Anxiety – festival of arts + science + people. Her Laureate Research Lab advances the study of the subjective experience of ageing mental health marginalisation and stigma combining psycho-social approaches with the use of immersive environments and virtual reality to enable perspective sharing and the development of effective methods for cultivating empathy.
Volker Kuchelmeister is an expert in presenceembodiment and place representation for immersive applications. As lead immersive designer at the UNSW felt Experience and Empathy Labhe has developed research tools and projects focussing on spatial storytelling remote collaboration and community engagement for immersive media. He has worked extensively in interactive narrative experimental imaging spatial mapping interactive systems cinematography and immersive visualisation while exploring and exploding the boundaries of the cinematic image.
Lucia Barrera
Lucia is an interdisciplinary and practice-based researcher with an academic background in media arts and arts-based mental health practices. She has expertise in qualitativecreativeand participatory methods of research and professional practice.
She undertakes research on intersubjective factors of emotional healthimplements micro-phenomenological interviews to explore subjective experience in a structured wayand utilises immersive mediasuch as Virtual Reality systems to explore embodied interaction.
Glenn Barry
Glenn Barry has connections with the Gamilaraay – the First Nation peoples of North Western NSW and Western Qld. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Art and Bachelor of Digital Media with Honours. Growing up on theGold CoastGlenn is well-known and respected across most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services. He is proud to be recognised as someone who contributes to the local and national communities.Competent in providing leadership and administration servicesGlenn has over 10 years’ experience in the secondary and tertiary sector (TAFE and University) as well as nearly 20 years’ experience as an artist and 15years as a Chef/Hospitality. His focus has been in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander services across the specialised educational arena. He is aware of the wide-ranging circumstances that affect challenge and also benefit all with First Nation concepts and looks to his elders for advice in complex situations.
Naomi Sunderland
Naomi Sunderland is a member of the School of Health Sciences and Social Work and Creative Arts Research Institute at Griffith University. Naomi is a proud descendant of the Wiradjuri First Nations People of Australia alongside her mixed European heritage. She has an extensive research and publishing record in arts-health well-being and First Nations social justice with a particular focus on creative anti-oppressive and trauma-informed research approaches. Naomi taught in the First Peoples and Social Justice team at Griffith University from 2014 specialising in transformative learning and teaching cultural and social health determinants and anti-oppressive practice. She was awarded an Australian Research Council Fellowship (2021-2024) to study the effect of First Nations’ music on social and cultural determinants of health. Naomi is a singer-songwriter and community music facilitator. She has a PhD in applied ethics and human rights from the Queensland University of Technology.
Phil Graham
Professor Emeritus at University of the Sunshine Coast
Gail Kenning
Dr Gail Kenning’s work is located at the intersection of art design and creativity and how these can contribute to health and wellbeing with a particular focus on ageing and dementia. Her research and practice explore creativity and health from two perspectives: How creativity can support and facilitate health and wellbeing; and how creative approaches can be applied in the collection of data to better understand the concerns needs and embodied lived experience of elderly people in relation to physical and mental health and social engagement/disengagement and connection/disconnection. Creative approaches can include Visual Matrix participatory creative workshops and deliberative discussion story telling and creative making.
Credits: by Marianne Wobcke with Volker Kuchelmeister Jill BennettLucia BarreraGlenn BarryNaomi SunderlandPhil GrahamGail Kennning
URL: https://feel-lab.org/research_projects/perinatal-dreaming-understanding-country/