The Icarus Project

Welcome To Icarus

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

We are a network of people living with and/or affected by experiences that are often diagnosed and labeled as psychiatric conditions. We believe these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

Read Our Mission and Vision statements
Read the Co-Coordinators Organizational Blog
Read our publications online
Visit our community discussion forums
Make a donation
Icarus t-shirts

Mad Gifts: An Art Show

Submitted by Icarus Project on Wed, 08/18/2010 - 10:05pm.

Summer Update from TIP

Submitted by Icarus Project on Tue, 08/03/2010 - 11:26pm.

Hola to our friends and comrades near and far -- Here's what's happening across the rad madlands. Please feel free to forward to allies, comrades, friends, and family.

Updates on the USSF, our current financial status, art shows in the northeast, books we're reading, forum moderation changes, and more behind the link.

Local group updates on the way.

Thanks to all USSF Workshop attendees

Submitted by Icarus Project on Wed, 06/23/2010 - 12:51pm.

Thanks to all of our workshop attendees for "Our radical mental health as activists" this morning at the USSF. We were so excited for your thoughts and energy and passion around creating mutual aid support systems for mental and emotional health.

Crooked Beauty screening at the US Social Forum

Submitted by Icarus Project on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 11:43pm.

Interview with Clare Christina on Examiner.Com

Submitted by Icarus Project on Wed, 05/19/2010 - 3:08pm.

With the numbers of “diagnosable” mental illnesses being so high, it isn’t any wonder activists are questioning just how much sense these diagnoses make. Where is the line drawn between illnesses and gifts, between insanity and individuality?

At the Intersection of Counterculture, Spirituality, and Social Justice (Icarus at Esalen)

Submitted by scatter on Wed, 05/19/2010 - 2:41pm.

I'm spending the month of June co-teaching a seminar at Esalen on the history of the Human Potential Movement and what lessons and tools might be useful for a modern day radical mental health movement. That's not actually the full description of what the course is about, but that's the focus I'm bringing to the table from my years working with the Icarus Project and being involved in radical anti-capitalist organizing...