© Graham MacIndoe
How often do you see the word HEROIN written on a wall? Let alone inside a museum. It’s almost a profanity, a taboo swear, used only in certain situations. Cocaine, coke, you can say that, because that’s glamourised for celebrities and party boys (even Rishi Sunak made a joke about it with school children). But heroin? Shhh! It’s the dark side of drug-taking; pain, addiction, isolation, and often death.
Two photographers, different lives, different continents. Graham MacIndoe and Lindokuhle Sobekwa, total strangers.
Their work had never met, and neither had they, but somehow the conversation had been in play for years. A bold exchange, the images mirroring experiences, the same but different.
To say the Heroin Falls exhibition at Sainsbury Centre is refreshing is, of course, a bizarre contradiction in terms, but also a massive understatement.
The exhibition unflinchingly reveals heroin dependency as seen through the eyes of two remarkable photographers. The exhibition aims to show how substance use and dependency is a global challenge that transcends race, location and class.
Magnum photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa (b.1995) aimed his lens at a group of young men living in the South African township of Thokoza, where they turned to using Nyaope, a low-grade form of heroin which can be mixed with many different bulking agents including cannabis products, antiretroviral drugs, as well as other materials.
While most documentary projects about dependency expose another person’s behaviour, Scottish-born, New York-based photographer Graham MacIndoe (b.1963) took a very different approach: he photographed himself during the years he was dependant on heroin. He’d place a cheap digital camera on a table or bookshelf, set the self-timer to take a photo every so often, then turn his attention to the rituals of his habit. The resulting images unflinchingly depict his drug dependency, along with his creative use of the medium to chart his own recovery.
Watch this video on the Sainsbury Centre Channel to find out more about the story behind the exhibition and the photographers’ experiences, in their own words.
© Left – Graham MacIndoe, Right – Lindokuhle Sobekwa
© Left – Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Right – Graham MacIndoe
© Left – Graham MacIndoe, Right – Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Heroin Falls is part of the Sainsbury Centre’s six-month season of interlinked exhibitions and programmes, Why Do We Take Drugs? From alcohol and caffeine to ayahuasca and heroin, this season uses art to take visitors on a journey of investigation, inviting audiences to explore the world of global drug cultures from illegal to familiar across one mind-blowing museum landscape.
Other exhibitions in the season include: Power Plants: Intoxicants, Stimulants and Narcotics, 14 September 2024 – 02 February 2025 / Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon, 14 September 2024 – 02 February 2025 / Ivan Morison: Towards the Weird Heart of Things, 21 October 2024 – 28 February 2025 / Lindsey Mendick: Hot Mess, 23 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Please note, this exhibition includes strong imagery depicting active use, including needles, smoking, substances and people under the influence of drugs. These images might be difficult to view and distressing and may not be suitable for children.
23 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Sainsbury Centre,
University of East Anglia, Norfolk Road,
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
9.30am – 6pm, Tuesday – Friday. 10am – 5pm, Saturday – Sunday. Closed Mondays, including bank holidays.
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