Since the widespread closure of psychiatric institutions, low-income housing facilities have become a primary aid for the severely mentally ill in many countries. Patients are no longer removed from society: they live in group homes and come and go as they please. Severe medication, few social programs, and the longterm effects of illness unite the sedate lifestyles across homes. In a sense, they have created a new sub-culture; a new way of being for the deinstitutionalized. This portraiture work explores the individual personalities that reside within these homes across North America.
Ivory Day received a Dr. of Philosophy from l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has published philosophical articles in academic journals and collective volumes, and presented her research at conferences in cities across the world.
Day also has an artistic practice that merges philosophy with photography in order to experiment with the notion of social representation. She received a BFA from Emily Carr University, studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and worked at the International Center of Photography. She has exhibited her work internationally in galleries and museums.
Awards Postdoctoral research fellowship Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Méxicom 2023-2024
fellowship Pensées françaises contemporaines, Center Marc Bloch, 2022
CIERA fellowship, 2023
Government of Île de France: International Mobility Scholarship 2018-2021
King’s College London: Global Experience Program – Scholarship for German studies in
Berlin, 2016
Government of British Columbia: One World Scholarship Program – Semester at
L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Paris, 2013
British Columbia Art’s Council: Award for documentary project “Mental Health Housing”, 2013
Government of Canada: Scholarship for 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of undergraduate studies 2011-2013
