About
Bearing Witness Inc. harnesses the power of the arts to evoke emotion, foster conversations, and inspire action around youth mental health and suicide awareness. We believe artistic expression can cut through silence and stigma, creating moments of connection that encourage people to listen, understand and care. Through music, visual art, movement, literature and storytelling, we amplify young voices and create experiences that bring difficult realities into the open and create spaces for people to connect, share experiences and support one another.
What we do
COMMISSION
We commission new music and art exploring youth mental health and suicide, giving artists space to explore experiences of connection, loss, hope and psychological distress and bring them into the public conversation.
PRESENT
We present concerts, performances and events that bring these works to audiences, creating spaces to experience, reflect, connect and begin conversations around difficult subjects.
CONNECT
We bring artists, young people, families, professionals and communities together to listen, share experiences and challenge the stigma and silence around mental health and suicide.
COLLABORATE
We partner with organisations across the arts, mental health and community sectors to amplify these messages, reach new audiences and turn awareness into action.
We commission. We present. We connect. We collaborate.
Because our work is not simply about presenting art. It is about what happens around it: the conversations it starts, the experiences it makes visible and the action it can inspire.
Our beginning
Bearing Witness was founded by Dani, who created the organisation from a deeply personal experience of loss and from a belief in the capacity of the arts to help us have conversations that are sometimes hardest to begin.
In 2025, Dani's son, Emanuel — Manny — died by suicide at just 18 years of age.
Manny was a beautiful choral singer and gifted violinist. He was also a young man experiencing profound psychological pain. Like many young people struggling with their mental health, he found it difficult to communicate the extent of what he was experiencing.
For Dani, the experience brought into sharp focus how difficult it can be for young people to ask for help — and how difficult it can be for the people around them to know what they are seeing, what to say or how to respond. Shame, silence and a lack of understanding can create enormous barriers to connection at precisely the time connection matters most.
In the aftermath of Manny's death, music became a way for Dani to find a sense of connection with him again. She began commissioning new works in his memory.
As those works were performed, something unexpected happened. The concerts began conversations.
People talked about mental health, suicide, grief and suffering. Music created a space where difficult subjects could be approached with greater openness and humanity. It gave people a way to speak about experiences that can otherwise remain hidden.
Dani realised that this was something worth pursuing — not simply as a way of remembering Manny, but as a way of creating opportunities for other young people, families and communities to talk, listen and connect.
That became Bearing Witness.
Our goals
We want young people experiencing psychological distress to know that they are not alone.
We want families, friends and communities to feel more able to recognise suffering, ask difficult questions and listen without judgement.
And we want mental health and suicide to become subjects we can talk about openly, rather than experiences surrounded by silence and shame.
We believe communication matters. The words we use can create distance, or connection. Being willing to listen can be an act of care.
Through the arts, Bearing Witness creates spaces for those conversations to happen — challenging stigma, amplifying young voices and helping us become better at hearing what people are trying to say.
Ultimately, we want to help create a world in which young people experiencing mental health difficulties are met with understanding rather than shame, support rather than silence, and people who are willing to listen.