About Qualia Theatre.
Qualia : (/ˈkwɑːliə) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience of a shared and current reality.
Qualia is a growing collection of new devised theatre works by artists with diverse experience of the Australian public mental health system. All artists are passionate about revealing human rights in adult psychiatric wards through performance.
Directed and Produced by Heidi Everett, multimedia artist, independent producer and lived experience advocate, Qualia Theatre subverts the typical expression of mental illness by holding the systems to account.
Fact : on any given day an Australian public psychiatric ward has, on average, 25-30 adults.
A general adult psychiatric unit (APU) is made up of a common area; one consulting psychiatrist; three meals a day; one activity a week; a primary antipsychotic medication; a preferred stay quota of around six weeks.
Qualia Theatre wants you to understand the psych ward experience.
*Content advice - the following description may distress some people with experience of public mental health wards.
Each person has a bedroom with a single metal bed with a rubber/foam mattress and bolted down side-table and small cupboard. Every room has an en suite bathroom which sounds great until you see the cleaner wash every bathroom down each day with one bucket of soapy water wiping down every toilet and your toothbrush with the same chux cloth for every room. Feet often end up covered in warts. Men and women are able to access any room, at any time.
People mentally unwell on substances frequent the APU for 24 hours, and sometimes act out with such violence causing all patients to be 'locked down' in their rooms; terrifying people with trauma (mostly everyone). Police are not allowed to enter the APU.
The only way to be admitted to a public APU is through a hospital ER triage and distressed people are mostly brought to the ER by police or in ambulances because there is no mental health first response on Triple Zero. If you're lucky, a friend (usually with lived experience) brings you to hospital and will sit with you. The journey from the ER to the APU is fraught with violence, often from the interaction with overworked staff, security guards and APU transfer staff.
Recovery and discharge is based on a person's capacity to accept and tolerate medication, and display regulated insight to their illness.
There are no cultural or language support structures in an APU. Auslan interpreters, elder healing, access to religious or spiritual resources, and health rights around physical exercise or mental stimulation, are non-existent. An APU with an outdoor courtyard area is usually frequented by smokers making fresh air inaccessible to people with sensory realities. Cigarette ash and butts litter any natural ground.
As well as minimal structures, all these people have completely different lives, dreams, backgrounds and human rights to the single medical model coerced upon us.
Qualia reveals all.
Directed and Produced by Heidi Everett, multimedia artist, independent producer and lived experience advocate, Qualia Theatre subverts the typical expression of mental illness by holding the systems to account.
Fact : on any given day an Australian public psychiatric ward has, on average, 25-30 adults.
A general adult psychiatric unit (APU) is made up of a common area; one consulting psychiatrist; three meals a day; one activity a week; a primary antipsychotic medication; a preferred stay quota of around six weeks.
Qualia Theatre wants you to understand the psych ward experience.
*Content advice - the following description may distress some people with experience of public mental health wards.
Each person has a bedroom with a single metal bed with a rubber/foam mattress and bolted down side-table and small cupboard. Every room has an en suite bathroom which sounds great until you see the cleaner wash every bathroom down each day with one bucket of soapy water wiping down every toilet and your toothbrush with the same chux cloth for every room. Feet often end up covered in warts. Men and women are able to access any room, at any time.
People mentally unwell on substances frequent the APU for 24 hours, and sometimes act out with such violence causing all patients to be 'locked down' in their rooms; terrifying people with trauma (mostly everyone). Police are not allowed to enter the APU.
The only way to be admitted to a public APU is through a hospital ER triage and distressed people are mostly brought to the ER by police or in ambulances because there is no mental health first response on Triple Zero. If you're lucky, a friend (usually with lived experience) brings you to hospital and will sit with you. The journey from the ER to the APU is fraught with violence, often from the interaction with overworked staff, security guards and APU transfer staff.
Recovery and discharge is based on a person's capacity to accept and tolerate medication, and display regulated insight to their illness.
There are no cultural or language support structures in an APU. Auslan interpreters, elder healing, access to religious or spiritual resources, and health rights around physical exercise or mental stimulation, are non-existent. An APU with an outdoor courtyard area is usually frequented by smokers making fresh air inaccessible to people with sensory realities. Cigarette ash and butts litter any natural ground.
As well as minimal structures, all these people have completely different lives, dreams, backgrounds and human rights to the single medical model coerced upon us.
Qualia reveals all.
