Learn about a marriage of street smarts and scholarly skills, an impossible combination in the asylum era. Eugène Leblanc, director of an innovative Moncton support group, and Nérée St-Amand, professor of social work at the University of Ottawa, met in 1987. Sharing a savvy critique of the mental health system, they have been working together ever since.
Draw your own conclusions about Canada’s first experiment in mental health education. Can you reduce stigma by teaching people about mental illness? In 1951 researchers Elaine and John Cumming traveled to Indian Head, Saskatchewan, to test that idea. In a turn of unparalleled irony, the townsfolk grew hostile towards the Cummings and the mayor told them to leave.
Imagine encountering an exhibit of female figures, whose faces and bodies were inscribed with tales of psychiatric torture? This was Still Sane and the year was 1984. Fast forward twelve months, and Vancouver’s Press Gang publishers produced the book, taking the show’s feminist, lesbian and mad politics to a much wider audience.
This exhibit takes you inside the unique experiment that is PARC, Toronto’s Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre. Born in 1980 as a drop-in centre offering basic services to former psychiatric patients, PARC evolved to provide employment, to advocate on issues of poverty, mental health and homelessness, and to become a vital neighbourhood institution.
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum is a 36-minute historical documentary about the MPA (Mental Patients Association), Vancouver’s most radical and successful mental health group. A compilation of interviews clips, animation, vintage footage, and original music, this provocative, passionate and engaging film speaks to social justice, community-building and mental health today.
