Painting a path to healing

MENTAL health art collective Antifragile will open the doors to its second annual art exhibition next weekend, inviting the community to help chart a path forward to wellness.

The group, which holds weekly workshops at the Norlane Community Centre, will this year showcase its efforts for two weeks at the Fyansford Paper Mill, with a series of works that explore mental illness through the lens of lived experience: the symptoms, the impact of systems on wellbeing, and the power of community.

Antifragile founder Clare Johnston said the pieces set to feature are “profoundly powerful”, with each telling a “rich story of the dark, the light and everything in between”.

“This year is just building the quality of artworks, the power of the messages in them. The story that they’re telling is beautifully raw and honest in the way only art can tell a story, especially around the topis we talk about, like mental illness and the human experience,” she said.

“It means a hell of a lot to us to find our feet in the artistic community and celebrate that at the Fyansford Paper Mill, which has such a strong historical link to Geelong, both in its manufacturing history — which everyone is very well aware — but also in its artistic history.”

Antifragile will hold its opening night at the paper mill on Friday, October 10 from 6.30pm. The evening will be catered with Indigenous-informed food and will include live music by local musician Corey Carney, whose set is also based on his own lived experience.

The exhibition, named Together we are Antifragile, will then run until October 18, opening daily between 10am and 4pm, with mini workshops on offer to introduce visitors to Antifragile and its meditative process.

Visitors to the exhibition will also be encouraged to participate in a community art installation project that will form the basis for the art collective’s new logo, as it continues to expand its impact across the community.

“We ask the community to engage and share some of their insights and experiences,” Johnston said.

“While we spend all year in the workshops working towards this [exhibition], we also think it’s important that the people that come through and meet us for the first time, or see what we do for the first time, get a chance to add their say.

“Transparent conversation about what the reality of living with mental illness is, is the only way we’re going to move forward.”

For more information or to register for a mini workshop, visit the Antifragile Facebook page.

To secure a “pay as you feel” ticket to the exhibition’s opening night, head to givenow.com.au/event/210