Icaristas from near and far will be gathering at the US Social Forum in Detroit this summer, June 22-26. Join in the planning  discussion on the forums! Also check out and join the monthly community call.

The second annual Reelabilities film festival was held this past weekend in the NY metropolitan area. The festival’s mission statement cites “dedication to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities.” In addition to award-winning films the weekend’s events included discussions and other special programs intended to “bring together the community to explore, discuss and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.”

If you Twitter, follow Icarus at www.twitter.com/madgifts.

Our Twitter feed gets updated with all the new Icarus Organizational blog posts, the Links of Interest, latest Madness Radio shows, plus additional bits and pieces of data from the Icaristasphere.

Icarus-NYC local and Icarus intergalactic organized a showcase of creativity in Brooklyn to benefit Icarus efforts - more than 150 people showed up for a fun evening of poetry art and music. Check out the photos, video, and audio from this memorable occasion...

Michael Gennarelli spins >>

To our supporters, collaborators and fellow visionaries!

We are asking our community to help keep us going into the future by becoming an Icarus sustainer. You can design a monthly donation package for yourself by clicking here:

http://www.tinyurl.com/donate2icarus

Angel Adeyoha writes: I was happy to attend the annual NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation) Institute as a representative of TIP. I presented a workshop on "Radical Mental Health on Campus and in the Community through an Anti-Oppression Lens" I have been considering so much lately how my work organizing in explicit anti-oppression circles around topics of race, gender and class converge with my work as a coordinator for TIP. This weekend and this workshop really merged those parallel lines for me.

Icaristas Sam Kendakur, Will Hall, and Bonfire Madigan Shive presented at the Rethinking Psychiatric Crisis: Alternative Responses to First Breaks conference in New York City. They joined more than 200 researchers, people with psychiatric diagnoses, policymakers, clinicians, advocates, and family members from several countries including Finland and the UK to discuss effective hospital, labeling, and force alternatives. Check out the slideshow here, and more info at the International Network Towards Alternatives for Recovery website.

Annie Robinson's article "College Mental Health: A Different Diagnosis" is in Wiretap Magazine, a leading online youth activist website: School health providers are supposed to act in the best interests of the student. But who it is that gets to define these "best interests" is a subject for debate among students and counseling staff.

A new trailer is up now for the forthcoming indie documentary film Crooked Beauty following the powerful words, insights and narrative of TIP co-founder Ashley McNamara with the music of TIP founding collective member Bonfire Madigan (bmad)! 

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center, is now available in German - thanks to the dedicated volunteer translation work of Inez Kochius.

Icarus co-coordinator Annie Robinson just had an essay published in the activist youth web magazine WireTap: Landing With Icarus: Navigating Madness On Campus:

I remember vividly the day I met my first psychiatrist.... She was going to help me find a way to deal with the raging voices that had been telling me to seek control of my life by abusing my body, to quell the debilitating sadness and lethargy that kept me sunken in my bed nearly every day. The fact that my best friend was dying of bone cancer came up, but had little to do with her treatment plan. Eventually she came up the answer: Seroquel. Over the following eight years I was subjected to an onslaught of chemical cocktails corresponding to a long list of diagnoses cast upon me...

River swimming, cross country touring, backyard (vegan) barbecuing,
bicycle rambling, gardening/ harvesting/ gleaning -- summer is here. Late summer, to be precise, which is the fifth season in chinese medicine, with a tempo and mood all its own. The Icarus Project has been spreading and connecting, swarming and flowing in multiple omni-directions over the past four months, gathering and connecting a community of radical-minded visionaries to change the world and nurture mental wellness. Here's a recap and some website art as we enter the last few weeks of glorious summer and welcome the coming fall...

In June and July, Leah Harris and Daniel Hazen of the U.S. Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry organized a "Human Rights for ALL" tour,  co-sponsored by many organizations include The Icarus Project, MindFreedom, CAFETY, and the Freedom Center. The tour was designed to raise awareness about human rights and particularly the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Read Leah's report here...

Campus Icarus Project at Evergreen State College organized a week of Mad Pride events June 1-5, including film showings, discussions and presentations, a spoken word gathering, vigil, a string labyrinth in the campus square, acupuncture demonstration, activist strategy, and more...

Mental Health Clients and Psychiatric Survivors to Lead Protest of
American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting

Protesters Say, “Our Creative Support Will Overcome Psychiatric Corruption!”

This Sunday: Festival of Resistance at APA Convention in SF MindFreedom International & California Network of Mental Health Clients 17 May 2009, 1 PM. Moscone Center, San Francisco
 

Newsweek magazine just did a big story on Mad Pride and The Icarus Project, profiling Icarus Intergalactic Co-Coordinator Will Hall.

Check it out on the Newsweek site here; or view a .pdf of the magazine version here; you can also take a look at the art gallery they put together here that includes Icarus gallery art from Will, Lizxnn Disaster, Fly, Janice Sorensen, Laurie S., Quyn Horton, Martin Cohen, Jennifer Brister, Valerie Crosswhite, and Christina Mazzalupo. And feel free to leave comments and join the discussion on the Newsweek site.

Spring is here! Blossoms on trees, warmer days, melting snow and the re-emergence of green. For more than 6 years the wild, unruly growth that is The Icarus Project has been sending roots deep into the soil and spreading tendrils of radical mental health and mutual support throughout society. With the new season Icarus is doing some spring cleaning as we consolidate the work of the past 6 months and gear up for the energizing times ahead, so here is our Spring 2009 update!

Icarus just brought another co-coordinator into the Intergalactic collective, this time to work on the Education and Outreach group out of the New York office. Annie has been a key organizer with Gallatin Campus Icarus at NYU. Read more about Annie, check out the Gallatin image gallery, and you can also listen to a great interview with her here.