Andrée Copeland poses between two of her works of art at the IPO Gallery that portrays her psychological disabilities.
Andrée Copeland says the cane symbolizes her physical disabilities and the door represents her psychological disabilities: “It’s two things working against me.”
The photos she describes are part of the Working With the Whole Picture exhibit at the IPO Gallery, which opened Jan. 8. Ten people with mental illnesses were given cameras to take photographs that represent barriers, support and hope in the workplace and work-related topics.
The exhibit gives them the opportunity to have their voices heard and raise awareness of mental health illnesses, says Lisa Jamieson, the project co-ordinator from the Canadian Mental Health Association.
“People need to open their eyes [and come] out of the dark ages when dealing with mental illness,” she says, indicating the main ideas behind the project.
The message is getting across to visitors, says gallery director Francesco Corsaro. “People do come away trying to understand what it is that people with mental illnesses face.”
Copeland, who suffers from chronic post traumatic stress disorder and chronic anxiety, is also type-two bi-polar and physically disabled. Given her disabilities, she says it would be difficult to have a typical job. There were times when her anxiety around being out in public was so bad she would not leave the house.
Often, people are ignorant about mental illness, says Copeland.
“Most of us are harmless,” she exclaims. “The press makes a big to-do about the few people that go ballistic and forgets that most of us are reasonably well-rounded, gentle, kind and decent people.”
One of the photos in the exhibit is of an orange newspaper box, vandalized with the word mental written in marker. In the caption, photographer Daniel Mayville writes, “It hit me hard. The thoughts that came to my mind were about my own stigma of mental illness, about how from birth I’ve been called stupid, loser, mental.”
Most of the artists decided only to disclose their first names in the exhibit. Jamieson says this is because some are looking for work and fear discrimination.
“Not everyone wants to be out necessarily as someone who’s post-psychiatric,” says Copeland.
The artist Toni chose not to provide her last name. A photograph she captured looks down the neck of a bottle. “This signifies the stigma I have run into – the idea that people with a mental illness are not very educated and are not very intelligent,” she writes in the caption. “If you know I have a mental illness and talk down to me or underestimate my intelligence, you will miss the real me.”
Often, people with mental illnesses face this kind of discrimination, Copeland says. But public education is essential to changing these sentiments, with projects such as this exhibit.
She says that although some of the photographers had similar illnesses, they all brought different perspectives to the group. Copeland enjoyed the collective effort that went into the project.
While participants were working to get their individual voices out, Jamieson says everyone came together as a group so their work could be used as a public education tool to initiate discussion with policy-makers.
The exhibit name, chosen by the group, describes their goal to “show people the whole picture about what the issues are around accessing work and sustaining work when you’re a person living with a serious mental illness,” Jamieson says.
Working With the Whole Picture is on display until at the IPO Gallery until Feb. 6.