April 04, 2006
Insanity in focus:
This is one I missed when it first appeared - the United Colors of Benetton magazine Colors had an issue focusing on mental illness and its treatment around the world.
Despite the flash-heavy website, there's some beautiful photography in there, including some self-portraits taken by patients (like the one on the right).
The issue features patients from Cuba, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Belgium and Los Angeles, and shows the striking inequalities in mental health treatment throughout both the developed and developing world.
The photographs from Cuba are also currently part of an exhibition at London's Institute of Psychiatry, where they are contrasted with photographs of patients resident in the Bethlem Royal Hospital during Victorian times.
Many of these Victorian-era photographs from the Bethlem are reproduced in a thought-provoking book called Presumed Curable (reviewed here).
Link to issue of Colors on madness.
Link to details of Institute of Psychiatry exhibition.
Link to review of Presumed Curable.
