Welcome to This is Madness!

This digital gallery features student artwork produced from two undergraduate courses at Toronto Metropolitan University: A History of Madness (DST 500) and Mad People’s History (C/DST504). Feel free to explore the site and share it with others. We only ask that if you reference any of the pieces in your own work, you cite the website and the original artists individually for their work.

A bit of background…

Established in 1999, the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University has invested in contributing to and supporting the development of Disability Arts and Culture through annual events such as Art with Attitude. In addition to being a hub of Disability Arts and Culture, the School of Disability Studies is also at the forefront of the burgeoning field of Mad Studies – a global field of studies concerned with the rights and social integration of mental health service users. The School currently offers two popular courses in this area. Both courses focus on the local history of the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement while helping students to make connections between local, national and global issues experienced by mental health service users.

In 2010, David Reville and Danielle Landry decided to curate an exhibit of exemplary student artwork entitled This is Madness!  Since then, three additional art shows have been produced, including a show in celebration of International Women’s Day at Toronto Metropolitan University entitled Women and Madness.  For more about these exhibits, see Installations. This digital gallery allows us to share the artwork featured in those four exhibits, as well as dozens of additional multimedia pieces we had not been able to feature previously.

Additional works will continually be added to the site, so check back frequently!

Access concerns?

This digital gallery is intended to be fully accessible. If you encounter difficulty accessing any portion of this website, please let us know.