The catalog of the international exhibition initiated at Les Abattoirs reveals a little-known story that was a milestone in 20th century psychiatry and its new links with art brut and modern art, taking as its starting point the career of the Catalan psychiatrist François Tosquelles (1912-1994).

François Tosquelles, a Catalan psychiatrist who took refuge in France after the end of the Spanish Civil War, joined the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, in Lozère, in 1940. He soon made it the crucible of a psychiatric and social revolution, where patients, carers, intellectuals, artists and Resistance fighters lived together. From Auguste Forestier to Lucien Bonnafé, from Paul Éluard to Jean Dubuffet, “La Déconniatrie” is the result of a creative endeavour with multiple faces, and several hands.