Master of Mental Health Art Therapy Exhibition 2025

| the space between |

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

- Carl Jung

Welcome to the University of Queensland’s Master of Mental Health Graduation Exhibition 2025. The Master of Mental Health - Art Therapy is an intensive program, requiring commitment and dedication, both personal and professional. Through their studies and training within our program, we hope to offer students a liminal space where they can learn to hold, express and reimagine themselves. This concept is reflected in the theme of this years’ exhibition, which was chosen by the Art Therapy students. 

The experience of selecting this years’ theme was a dynamic process, involving the contemplation of one phase not-quite-ending, while the next phase has not-quite-begun. Moving, evolving, transitioning, playing around at the edges... This was the shared experience of this group of students, many of whom are now set to graduate as Art Therapists.  

This exhibition features our current cohort of Art Therapy students’ creative reflections on the experience and process of engaging in research. Many students this year have chosen to engage in autoethnographic and heuristic self-inquiries, in which the student sits in the role of both researcher and research participant. Others have worked directly with participants, either individually or in small groups, looking at what impact Art Therapy might have on these participants lived experience, or in one case, exploring aspects of the experience of being an Art Therapist. Another student has conducted a scoping review investigating how we currently understand one facet of Art Therapy practice. The range of research themes and topics examined by students this year is a testament to the versatility of Art Therapy as a therapeutic modality, through which the complexity of the human experience can be explored. 

We appreciate the ongoing support from research supervisors, teaching staff, families and friends. This guidance has been invaluable and supports our students on their journey of discovery throughout the research process. We extend our sincere congratulations to this group of students, who have been a pleasure to work with, and who have produced such interesting and diverse research papers. We are excited to envision what the future holds for our graduating students.