Exhibitions Reviews

The Aesthetics of Injecting: Needles and Syringes in Everyday Life

Needle & Syringe Cultures. A temporary exhibition developed by the University of Melbourne's Centre for Health and Society through the support of the Victorian Health Foundation, ASP Healthcare, Nanotechnology Victoria, Australian Injecting Drug Users League (AIVL), VIVAIDS (Victorian drug users organisation) and Fairfax Digital Image Archive. Curated by John Fitzgerald, Ann Brothers, Cat Wilson, Jack Wallace and Peter Higgs. Installed at the Alan Gilbert Building, level 1, 161 Barry Street, South Carlton, VIC 3053, Australia, 18–28 July 2007. Online exhibition catalogue, essays and video podcasts available at http://www.nspresearch.unimelb.edu.au/pods/catalogue.pdf. Visited 18, 27 and 28 July 2007.
On the cover of a recent issue of the Friends of the Earth Australia magazine there is a startling and incongruous image of a needle and syringe stuck into the side of an otherwise delicious looking pear. The article, it turns out, is about nanotechnology in the agricultural industry, and the image, it seems, is designed to elicit a visceral and emotional response to the rhetorical headline: 'Nano-Food vs Real Food.' It certainly succeeds. Despite the important role needles and syringes perform in the everyday maintenance of our health and wellbeing, the sight of a misplaced—or out of place—needle and syringe has an uncanny ability to generate sensations of fear, revulsion and intrigue.	1
It is this incredible affective capacity of needles and syringes which the Needle & Syringe Cultures exhibition acknowledges and explores. Organised around six different emotional themes—hope, belonging, fear, confidence, pleasure and discovery—the exhibition is designed to draw attention to the wide range of ways in which needles and syringes are used, encountered, represented and responded to in everyday life. The focal point of the exhibition is the series of six television monitors, one per theme, which display various short interviews, documentaries and movie and television clips. Included are interviews in which people discuss their experiences of living with diabetes (hope), being part of an injecting drug user organisation (belonging), getting an immunisation injection (fear), helping to prevent the spread of blood borne viruses (confidence) and working on the development of new painless 'nano-tech' drug delivery systems (discovery). Also included are clips from feature films such as Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting (pleasure), as well as footage of a child being immunised, a worker collecting discarded needles and syringes from the streets, a man using syringes to inject grease into bicycle hubs, and a cake-decorator using syringes to remove air-bubbles from icing.	2
Alongside the audiovisual clips is a range of other installations, including posters, magazines, a collection of toy doctor's kits, a syringe vending machine, plastic syringe disposal containers, a 'syringe' pen (used for signing the guest book), and a robotic machine demonstrating, at intense magnification, how new 'nano-tech' transdermal patches deliver painless injections. In sharp contrast to this emerging technology are several museum-style glass cabinets displaying collections of old syringes. These reveal an historical development of both design and function that, like the exhibition itself, inspires fascination and alarm. Many of the items on display are from private collections, and the short accompanying texts written by the collectors themselves bring to light new aspects of our 'human' fascination with, and strange desire for the syringe.	3
It is perhaps this acknowledgement of the positive and pleasurable aspects of needles and syringes—as objects of beauty, as cinematic plot devices, as children's toys, as revolutionary technologies, and as illicit drug delivery systems—which makes the exhibition so successful in its dual aim of engaging with the emotions produced by syringes, and enabling a productive knowledge transfer between the academy and the community. Rather than simply reiterating the oft-found binary split between 'appropriate' medical use and 'inappropriate' illicit drug use, the exhibition demands recognition of the multiple and often conflicting and overlapping ways in which needles and syringes produce 'sense' and 'sensation' in everyday life.	4
Such sensations have important implications for our attitudes toward those who use needles and syringes, and the policies surrounding such use. For example, as the principal curator noted in his opening night speech, the rational evidence for the public health benefits of needle and syringe programs for illicit drug users is by now well established, yet public policy and public reaction do not necessarily follow rational evidence. Needles and syringes evoke strong emotional and physical responses in people. These responses can work against the introduction of crucial harm reduction strategies, such as needle and syringe programs, heroin trials and safe injecting facilities. This inter-active, multi-media exhibition enables the affective capacity of needles and syringes not only to be felt, bodily, but also to be acknowledged and contemplated. It is successful, in other words, in producing not only an embodied emotional response, but also a reflexivity in relation to this response and its implications.	5
This exhibition is a great example of how 'knowledge transfer'—as a bi-directional flow of information between the public and the academy—can work in practice. It shares academic research, informed by abstract theories of culture and subjectivity, in a way which is approachable, accessible and affective. And to do so, it draws on the experiences, opinions and narratives of a wide range of people who come into contact with syringes in their everyday lives, presenting these narratives in a way which is neither moralizing nor lecturing. There is, however, at least one voice—that of injecting drug user—which could be more intimately presented in the exhibition. While this voice does feature indirectly, via peer representatives from drug user groups speaking about the politics of their peer roles, it seems a pity that the exhibition does not also include the narratives of illicit drug injectors speaking directly about their own experiences of injecting.	6
The exhibition's location within a university may also have limited its ability to attract a wide audience. Those in attendance seem to have predominantly been a combination of academics, students and needle and syringe service providers—albeit from a wide range of contexts—rather than the general population. Fortunately, most of the video-clips and essays are also available online, creating a digital forum with the potential to extend the life and scope of the exhibition. However, we would also like to see the full exhibition, which we believe to be of great value, installed in a variety of new locations where everyday people might stumble upon it and have their perceptions of needles and syringes brought to light and perhaps even shifted.	7
Image 1: Children's toy doctor's kit with plastic syringe. (Photograph by Peta Malins, taken with permission of the curators.)
Image 2: Display of old syringes in glass cabinet. Note the large embalming syringe at the back. (Photograph by Peta Malins, taken with permission of the curators.)
Image 3: Needle and syringe vending machine, which began its life as a cigarette vending machine. Today, these machines are custom built for the purpose of harm reduction, and help to prevent the spread of blood borne viruses by enabling injectors to access new equipment 24 hours a day. Note also the collection of plastic syringe disposal containers displayed above. (Photograph by Peta Malins, taken with permission of the curators.)
Needles and syringes possess an aesthetic power that is commonly used to evoke particular socio-political responses. The syringe stuck into the 'nano-pear' compels us to be fearful and wary of new food technologies. Headlines may be used to shock us into questioning or opposing critical harm reduction strategies. At the same time, awareness-raising images, such as those from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation's 'Kids in the House' campaign showing a child standing in front of a lawn covered by syringes, can motivate us to support a cause and take action. The Needle & Syringe Cultures exhibition forces us to reflect not only on our own reactions to needles and syringes, but also on the variety of political, medical, symbolic, functional, pleasurable and life-saving ways they are mobilised in everyday life.	8
PETA MALINS CITY OF MELBOURNE & UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE MEREDITH KRATZMANN CITY OF MELBOURNE

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