The Institutions Will Not Save Us
Join us for this month’s Icarus NYC gathering, where we will share personal narratives of survival within institutional settings. This includes within universities, where mental health services often align with the interests of the school and liability rather than for students themselves. In this way, college is the beginning of learning about being penalized for having mental health concerns, being neurodivergent, or having needs that don’t align with capitalistic systems of manufacturing knowledge. This also includes psychiatric institutions, where many of our siblings and comrades are currently living or forced to be confined against their will. Purportedly institutionalized on the basis of safety or treatment, psychiatric hospitals instead serve to control those deemed unfit for society. In addition, for those of us working within psychiatric institutions as peers or clinicians, these systems also take a toll on our humanity as well, as we mediate between contributing to the system versus working within it towards change (or revolt). In this Icarus event, we will come together to explore the questions: Where can we find freedom? What are the shackles that bind us? Can we move towards freedom together?
EVENT AGENDA:
- our project introduction
- shared reading of our Community Agreements
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group Introductions and Safety Guidelines
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Sharing of artwork/music/written work
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reading excerpt from article by Esmé Weijun Wang [https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Esme-Weijun-Wang-Yale-Will-Not-Save-You-13546759.php]
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Experiences within Educational Institutions – lead by two organizer/facilitators
- Story circle
- Movement Activity
- Check Out
TRANSPARENCY: Though we are committed to collective liberation and are a mixed race collective, our history has traditionally brought in white, middle class people. In order to protect Queer Trans People of Color (QTPOC) from tokenization and psychic harm, we as a collective commit to prioritizing the needs of QTPOC in our public events and promoting QTPOC leadership in our collective. We acknowledge the emotional labor that QTPOC may perform in these spaces, which often go unrecognized. Therefore, we want white cisgender people to independently undo racism, gender binarism / sexism, while remaining accountable to QTPOC. We are currently engaging in an ongoing process of integrating these goals internally within our organization, among our mixed race organizers, and within the structuring of our external events. *
ACCESS ISSUES: The space is accessible for wheelchair users but does not have a bathroom for wheelchair users. We use mics to support people who are hard of hearing.
Bluestockings is wheelchair accessible, with no steps or platforms, and wide aisles between shelves. Our bathroom is not wheelchair accessible. There is a Starbucks two short blocks down the street with an accessible bathroom (at Allen and Delancey). Metered street parking is readily available in the blocks surrounding Bluestockings. Bluestockings is not a scent-free space, but we encourage visitors to please refrain from wearing perfumes, colognes or other scented products (including essential oils) and smoke far away from the entrance to the space.
And then we’ll hang out for a little while and be gone until another month. Make sure to sign-up for the mailing list at the event or email nycicarus@gmail.com.
DATE: Mar. 6th, 2019
TIME: 7pm
LOCATION: Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St, Manhattan
Hope to see you there! Mad love, Icarus Project NYC