"Not For Service" LTO.30

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“Not For Service” is an interactive tech installation in the guise of a waiting room. Audience members will have the opportunity to enjoy its clinical and inoffensive décor, informative and motivational posters, and soothing elevator music as they complete a mock psychiatric intake form.

Stemming from the lived experience of its creator, “Not For Service” aims to recreate the discomfort, frustration, and hopelessness many people feel when attempting to access mental healthcare. The installation blends elements of game design, performance art, and sound design to create an experience both wholly unique and disturbingly familiar. 

“Not For Service” takes audience members from the universal discomfort of waiting rooms to the devastating experience of having to jump through hoops to access vital mental health care. This experience has been reality for far too many people for far too long. Our mental health care system is designed to deny services to anyone deemed too complex, too mentally ill, too marginalised – in short, anyone deemed “Not For Service”. I hope you find the experience as harrowing as I did, and I hope it motivates you to demand better from our mental health care system.