Here is a sample of the many pieces of artwork that will feature in an art exhibition at the Events Centre from 18-24 April.
Our guest speaker was Christine Harrison who is the General Manager of the Dax Centre which houses a unique collection of artwork called the Cunningham Dax Art Collection.
The Cunningham Dax Collection consists of more than 15,000 artworks created by people who have experienced mental illness or psychological trauma. The Collection includes works on paper and canvas, photographs, textiles, sculptures, installations, artists’ books and diaries, digital media and films.
The Collection is named after its founder Dr Eric Cunningham Dax (1908 – 2008).
Dr. Dax was an English psychiatrist who moved to Melbourne when he was appointed as the Chairman of the Mental Hygiene Authority in 1952. In this role, Dr. Dax made many positive changes to Victoria’s mental health services. One such change was to introduce an art therapy program into Victorian psychiatric hospitals.
Victoria’s psychiatric hospitals began to be closed down in the 1980's and the thousands of artworks that had been created in the art therapy programs may have been destroyed. However, Dr. Dax believed that these were very valuable as educative tools. So he salvaged around 8000 of these works, which is how the Cunningham Dax Collection began.
In the early 2000's, the Collection expanded to include artworks made by people who have experienced trauma. This expansion led to a number of group donations, including the Childhood Trauma Collection, the Holocaust Collection, the Tsunami Collection and the Bushfire Collection.
The Cunningham Dax Collection is the only one of its type and size in Australia and only one of three such collections in the world.
It was decided to bring the collection to Wyndham because they have very few visitors from the west to their centre in Carlton and there are many people afflicted with mental health issues in our community who might benefit from seeing the exhibition and participating in the workshops.
Click here to see a video about the Dax Centre.
Click here to see details of the Giving Voice Exhibition at the Events Centre.