The Legal Epidemic Exhibit
I want to create an exhibit that explores how we have changed our relationship to opioids over the years. The exhibit should almost feel like a timeline in where we as a society have come to with the Poppy plant. The structure or layout will be linear and very timeline like, I want the visitors to how the subject has expanded through the years. The general information and exhibit pieces will progressively grow in quantity and diversity of artifacts. As time progresses in the exhibit the visitors will see a growing culture of opioids from music and digital media and an expanding variety of opioid artifacts.
To teach more on the topic of Opioids I want the visitors to learn where it all started. The most crude version of opioids comes in the form of opium, this is an unrefined version made via collection of the latex that leaks from the bulb when it’s scored or cut. Active opium collection is reported as far as 3400 BCE, which means that the people were using the unrefined version of opium that is made of the latex in the plant. I want the users to see an interactive visual of how this all looked, showing some of the early tools made for scoring the plant and what this all looks like. I want the visitors to understand that this crude form of opium use was small scaled and effective to some degree; ancient Sumerians referred to it as the “joy plant” and other accounts reported using sponges soaked in opium after surgery. Showing also some of the major figures and early chemists that had learned to refine opium. Opium studies and medical advancement largely came from the Middle East and the Islamic Empires bringing forth the new uses in anesthesia and post surgeries. Like the Great Man Theory I want to shine some light at Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi the Persian physician who built a laboratory and school around Opium related studies. Although the supply of opium was high the people of the Islamic Empires followed Hadiths and believed it was prohibited to use intoxicating substances but, scholars were allowed to use the substance for developing medical remedies. Even with more developed purposes and larger quantities the exhibit will still be simplistic at this stage since there wasn’t a societal dependance. The world was beginning to recognize the medical uses but the administration and use by the people wasn’t at the level it is today.
Using one side of the hall for the medical advancements of Opium and how we interact as humans with it. The parallel wall will display a growing recreational movement as the timeline progresses. To display the very low recreational uses in the first accounts of opium harvesting the wall will feature ancient artifacts like the veils that poppy seeds were kept in as well as information on Ancient Egyptian sculptures that included opium bubs. This will give a cultural relevance for the visitors to see as recreational methods were not popular till the 19th century.
Then as time progresses the visitors will see new ways opium was used. This will first be apparent with the long and narrow pipes used for smoking dried opium. This is also when China becomes a buyer of Opium and recreational use is more apparent. This is when the clutter of items and diversity of the substance become more overwhelming. Images of Opium Dens from around the world like those seen in France compared to the ones in China. The visitors should see the growing dependence and image of addiction in the users featured in images of the Opium Dens. Parallel to the recreational side that has an expanding variety of artifacts from pipes, storage cases, and images the visitors will see the Western side of Opium advancement. This will be seen with artifacts and documentation of supplying the western armies with opium pills and other forms of opium. In the early part of the 19th century era the medical side will feature a large model of an early Morphine bottle. Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner was first to isolate Morphine from the Poppy plant and like the grandfather of Opium, Sertürner will be staged at the grandfather of Morphine. From this the medical side will begin to see a growing clutter of artifacts as more pills and purer forms begin getting produced from the plant.
To finish the timeline of Opium there will be what we see today, an epidemic. The artifacts will include advertising and flyers made for conferences that Purdue Pharma made to first push Oxycontin. The visitors will see how and why doctors began to prescribe so much Opioids to the point of epidemic. Featuring some of the images from rallies created by medical ethics groups to advocate for more prescription of opioids for terminal and cancer pain. The recreational side will include things like Three Six Mafia who was one of the first to popularize Lean/Sizzurp or Promethazine/Codeine mixed with Sprite soda. Playing the song Sippin on Some Sizzurp which glorifies the feeling of recreational drinking or sippin on opioids. The recreational side will feature media and news like celebrity deaths and overdoses related to opioids. On the medical side there will be a slight shift as it will also begin to include enforcement related artifacts like the government officially issuing the the nation has gone into an Opioid Epidemic.
The visitor should leave with the idea in mind that strangely, our bodies are built to accept opioids but also easily depend on them. Most importantly the visitor will leave with knowledge on safe opioid practices. The end goal is the give people an open mind to people who are dependant on pain medicines and to know of the abuse dangers. Opioid use is timeless but Opioid abuse is very new.