Roosevelt University
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A Procession of Them: The Plight of the Mentally Disabled Photographs by Eugene Richards
About the exhibition:
In some countries, they call them the "abandonados," the abandoned ones. They're the impoverished mentally ill and mentally disabled patients being warehoused in psychiatric asylums that are more run-down, more uncaring than the most brutal American prisons. (continued on next slide)
Plight of the mentally disabled
Plight of the mentally disabled
A Procession of Them: The Plight of the Mentally Disabled Photographs by Eugene Richards
About the exhibition (continued):
Confined in cage-like cells, tied to beds soiled with human waste, medicated to the point of senselessness, or wandering naked in unheated and garage-like wards, they live in what can only be called the shadows, their plight unseen and too easily ignored by the rest of the human family.
Plight of the mentally disabled
Plight of the mentally disabled
A Procession of Them: The Plight of the Mentally Disabled Photographs by Eugene Richards
About the exhibition (continued):
Working first as a journalist, later as a volunteer for the human rights organization Mental Disability Rights International, photographer Eugene Richards gained access to psychiatric institutions in Mexico, Argentina, Armenia, Hungary, Paraguay, and Kosovo. His wrenchingly intimate images reveal the often inhumane treatment suffered by the mentally disabled.
Plight of the mentally disabled
Plight of the mentally disabled

Gage Gallery

Current Exhibition:

Feb 11 - May 14, 2010
A Procession of Them: The Plight of the Mentally Disabled
Photographs by Eugene Richards

Read the Chicago Art Magazine review of the exhibition.