Lady GaGa, Diane Arbus, Vincent van Gogh, Kurt Cobain – the list of geniuses with mental health issues is long and well known. But how do the two relate to one another? Or, to rephrase the question, can a mental illness also be seen as a superpower? To answer this question Jan Hoek spent three months living in a psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn, collaborating with the hospital’s clients and other unique individuals he met in New York. This comic book, Mental Superpowers, is the result.

Expo Mental Superpowers, Amsterdam