McAdams, Dona Ann. Dona Ann McAdams: The Garden of Eden. November 7 - December 31, 1997.

Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery, Syracuse University. No. 50. Photographs of people with mental illness. [McAdams had been working for 14 years on this project at time of exhibition.] Includes black-and-white and hand-colored photographs. Introduction by Jeffrey Hoone, Director, Light Work. Essay by Brad Kessler. Wraps, exhibition catalog, 32 pages, fine with very minor signs of use. Summary:

Dona Ann McAdams: The Garden of Eden is a photography exhibition catalog published by the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery at Syracuse University. The volume documents a solo exhibition that ran from November 7 through December 31, 1997. It features an introduction by Light Work director Jeffrey Hoone and a critical essay by author Brad Kessler, serving as a powerful visual testament to the lives of people living with severe mental illness.

Key Focus Areas

• The Core Project: The publication highlights a portion of McAdams’ multi-year participatory project with institutionalized, homeless, and mentally ill individuals—specifically focusing on a community living with schizophrenia on Coney Island, New York.

• Collaborative Agency: A major theme of the volume is the concept of empowerment and shared authorship. Rather than presenting the subjects merely as passive targets of a documentary lens, the project highlights collaborative artwork where the participants directly hand-colored and wrote on McAdams' original silver gelatin prints using oil pastels and colored pencils.

• Humanizing the Invisible: The collection deliberately works to break down the societal stigma surrounding psychiatric conditions. Through intimate, respectful portraits, McAdams and her collaborators provide a nuanced, deeply humanized glimpse into daily life, creativity, and the internal worlds of a heavily marginalized urban subculture.

• The Visual Approach: Curated down into a slim showcase of plates, the catalog emphasizes a raw yet deeply sensitive aesthetic. It relies on the distinct, grainy textures of black-and-white film juxtaposed against vibrant, expressive overlays of hand-applied color to give form to the subjects' lived experiences.