IT was time for rejoicing at the Ray Morton Park near the Riverside Café on Queanbeyan River this morning when community members gathered to mark the unveiling of a unique arts and mental health collaboration that has seen 200 original ceramic tiles, created by 100 people, installed on  top of retaining walls in the city’s soon-to-be opened “sensory garden.”

After a welcome to country by Indigenous community representative, Lionel Williams, Queanbeyan City Mayor Tim Overall praised the Richmond Fellowship of the ACT whose idea it had been and who received  a Queanbeyan City Council Cultural Arts Assistance Scheme grant  for the project.

He said that most of the participants had been mental health consumers with some other members of the community creating tiles too.

Overall explained the process of the work, overseen by artist Dianna Quiggin and  described the work as “stunning,” suggesting that its tangible outcomes were even more significant than what we saw before us.

He said the project was consistent with the principles of social inclusion that lay behind the garden, to be opened in September as part of Queanbeyan’s 175^th celebrations.The mayor and Mr Williams then unveiled a plaque dedicated to the project and its theme, “Celebrate Connect Grow.”

Wilf Rath,  CEO of the Richmond Fellowship of the ACT said the work had been carried out at Piallaio workshops,  where he too had created a tile. He paid tribute to Katrina McLean, a personal carer with the Richmond Fellowship’s Pham program in Queanbeyan, and to all those who had made the project possible. A diabetes sufferer himself, Rath said, “Mental illness is a bit like diabetes —you have to cope and get on.”

Quiggin took the podium to explain how this project helped to “Destigmatise ideas about what’s normal and what’s art.” She outlined the different quadrants in the sensory garden where tiles dealt with animals, water,  vegetation and, most important, some tiles were carved with raised surfaces so that they could be felt as well as seen—some were even in Braille.

“Anyone who made a tile  has a tile out there,” she said.

As the crowd present wandered around the garden where flowers, herbs and vegetables mingled happily, there was much speculation on who had helped themselves at the spinach already and why strawberries were ripening in winter.Overheard at the function today: “I just hope the good people of Queanbeyan are happy to enjoy the tiles where they are and not…”  what could the speaker have meant?