New Exhibition of Workshop Outputs
This exhibition explores what it is to live a life without drugs and alcohol where they have previously featured heavily. It is based on a collaboration between a researcher, two artists, Isla Millar and Penny Maltby, and seven research participants. It forms part of an early-career research project led by Dr Fay Dennis and funded by the Wellcome Trust entitled ‘Mapping bodies and care practices: Making people who use drugs matter’. The purpose of the project was to study drug-related effects including harm as sociomaterial processes.
The exhibition displays a series of ‘body maps’ made by people in recovery/treatment for drug and alcohol dependency alongside an installation that has been made by the artists in response. Participants’ body maps illustrate the embodied and collective “work” involved in living without drugs (predominantly, heroin, crack cocaine and/or alcohol) as a way of learning to live with their continuing affects and effects. Rather than a clearly defined and stable movement from substance use to recovery, participants depict the ongoing nature of this work, encapsulated in one participant’s phrase “I am a work in progress”. As a term often used by artists to describe unfinished pieces, it resonated with the group, capturing the precarity of such a life that requires skill and creativity.
Exhibition Openings: Mon 7 Feb – Fri 25 Mar (11am–5pm) Late Evening Openings: Tue 22 Feb & Tue 22 Mar (11am–8pm) Saturday Openings: 19 Feb & 5, 12 & 19 Mar (11am–5pm) Constance Howard Gallery Deptford Town Hall New Cross Rd London, SE14 6NW
Cover image copyrights: Isla Millar & Penny Maltby.
For more information contact Fay Dennis.
