– Archives
David Reville was born in Brantford, Ontario, in 1943. He studied history at the University of Toronto and went on to law school. In 1965, he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder and spent two years in and out of mental hospitals.
Vancouver’s MPA (Mental Patients Association) was founded in 1971 as a grassroots response to deinstitutionalization and tragic gaps in community mental health. The group put former patients and lay allies in charge of its many successful social, housing, and employment projects, and in the process challenged the power of psychiatry.
In 1975 Vancouver photographer Gord McCann shot a series of evocative black and white images MPA members at the organization’s iconic Drop-In. Discovered in the bedroom closet of an MPA Founder in 1912, they will soon be part of our online archive.
Every Monday our Victoria BC psychiatric hospital’s 100 seat auditorium became a movie theatre to show an eclectic selection of films, carefully curated and often including guests and interactive discussions.
In 2010 a series of wide ranging interviews were conducted with people connected with the early Mental Patients Association (MPA). We plan to have the complete interviews available in the archives by the end of 2026.
This brave Canadian magazine was born in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, fueled by the determination of psychiatric survivors and activists Carla McKague and Don Weitz. Over it’s decade of existence, the resolutely political publication focused a critical eye on a shifting spectrum of mad issues.
