Mad Pride 2019 | Mad Honey

As part of the international Mad Pride movement, Gallery Gachet celebrates mental diversity and confronts stigma with our annual Mad Pride exhibition. Mad Pride rejects the inference of illness and disorder, reclaiming the term mad. We recognize our “dangerous gifts” by opening creative critical conversations about diagnosis, medication, and psychiatry. We believe there should be “nothing about us without us” and we are here to offer an artistic radical challenge to confining social norms.

2019’s Mad Pride theme is Mad Honey. From our collective hive we puzzle over poison, medicine, madness, sweetness, and intoxication. Mad Honey is a form of psychoactive wild honey transformed from the pollen of just a few rare rhododendron species from the Caucasus and Himalayan mountain ranges. It can be a natural remedy or a paralyzing toxin, cause euphoria or confusing hallucinations depending on the dose. We reflect on the meaning of adverse reactions through venom, sweetness and the dangerous gifts of nature.

We are welcoming submissions on this theme and will select four artists to exhibit. Please send a description and images of the work to: programming@gachet.org. The deadline for submission is Friday, May 10th.  There will be a community component of the show with workshops, stay tuned for the date and time to be announced.