Almost every person uses medicines. One takes ‘the pill’, the other takes an aspirin to counter that flu-like feeling, a third is halfway through an antibiotic treatment. Our medicine cabinets are full, but we hardly pay any attention to the impact of medicines on our lives.

This exhibition is about drug use, about medicines as your life partner. Based on the artwork Wieg tot Graf (Cradle to Grave), which is exhibited at the Medicines Evaluation Board in Utrecht, you discover how medicines are connected with the social and medical events in your life. Moreover, you learn more about a number of medicines and their effects. Finally, you are introduced to a different way of providing information about medicines, which, like the package insert, aims to stimulate good drug use.

Colophon

Text & explanation:
Pharmacopoeia. British artist collective consisting of GP Liz Lee, visual artist David Critchley and textile artist Susie Freeman. The trio wants to encourage spectators to examine their own medical and pharmacological history. Their art seeks the tension between the dependency on medicines in our society on the one hand and the ambivalent attitude we often have with regard to medicines on the other.

Peter van den Hooff. Studied history at Leiden University. Since 2013 he has been working on the history of pharmacy at Utrecht University and at Stichting Farmaceutisch Erfgoed.

Installation:
Pharmacopoeia

Photography​:
fieldOfView (panoramas)
Aad van Vliet (details)

Concept & realisation:
Collageboy Studio

Realisation virtual tour:
Jelle van der Ster

Realisation data visualisation:
Jacob Houtman
Marcella van Maanen

Realisation animation:
Hammersmith Hardmen Media

Project support:
Merel Bout
Kaylee Ferrier
Toine Pieters

Thanks to:
Nathalie Kuijpers (Utrecht University), Stan van Belkum (Medicines Evaluation Board, Utrecht).