LIFE AMONG DRUG USERS IN PICTURES


Michael von Graffenried has been following the everyday lives of drug users for eighteen months. The resultant 45 or so black and white photographs were shot with side lighting, making the subject stand out starkly and giving a realistic and unspectacular picture of life on drugs. Juxtaposed with mediaeval sculptures in the Swiss National Museum and as a poster campaign at the Platzspitz, once Zurich’s infamous Needle Park, the photographs evoke social and cultural connections far beyond the specific problems of the drug scene.

Thirteen years after the clean up of the open drug scene at the Platzspitz and ten years after the break-up of the drug hell at the Letten, the Swiss National Museum’s current exhibition «Rosanna, Astrid, Peter und die andern» [Rosanna, Astrid, Peter and the others»] takes a look at drug users in Switzerland today. The exhibition is based on the photoreportage of the same name by the Paris-based photographer Michael von Graffenried who, at the suggestion of the Bern network of the «Stiftung Contact» [Contact Foundation], shared the daily highs and lows of Rosanna, Astrid, Peter and other users of illegal drugs for eighteen months. Graffenried’s work resulted in a detailed reportage on the life of drug users which both documents the temptations and dangers of drug use and the social dimension of use, and highlights the fascination with drugs. The artist uses black and white photographs in a panorama format to show the different facets of drug use today, thereby giving drug addiction a face.

Graffenried’s photographs were exhibited during the winter of 2004/2005 in the form of a poster campaign in eleven Swiss towns and were juxtaposed with advertisements to make people stop and think. Now, however, they will be exhibited at the Platzspitz as silkscreen posters. In addition, in the mediaeval department of the Swiss National Museum the same photographs in the form of classical prints (barium sulphate) will be contrasted with other representations of people in exceptional situations. The contrast between black and white photographs and coloured, mediaeval figurines of saints allows a comparison that spans the ages of the representation of human feelings in different media and contexts. Emotions range from pleasure, enchantment, ecstasy and trance, to pain, despair and apathy. Based on this confrontation, the question soon arises as to whether -being in a drug induced state of mind is not so very far removed from extreme religious experiences and simply embodies another side of the human search for transcendental experiences that has been widespread in all eras and across all cultures?


In conjunction with this cultural historical focus, a film made specially for the exhibition enables people to find out more about the working methods of Michael von Graffenried, his reportage and his experiences with showing the photographs in public exhibitions.

The exhibition in the Swiss National Museum and at the Platzspitz in Zurich is an invitation to take a new look at the subject of drug consumption and opens up two time perspectives. On the one hand it draws people’s attention to the present, as the follow-on to a relatively recent, oft discussed era of Swiss drug policy. On the other hand it seeks to bridge the gap with the Middle Ages and to point to greater, cultural connections in our civilisation. As a reference by the Swiss National Museum to its own experience at the Platzspitz, it allows people to get to grips with the reality of the present.

Publication

Two books are being published to coincide with the exhibition:
Michael von Graffenried, «Cocainelove». Benteli, Bern 2005. CHF 39
(press copies obtainable from the publishers)
Michael von Graffenried, «Risk. Contact statt Ausgrenzung» [Risk. Contact, not marginalisation]. Contact Netz (Hg.), Bern 2004. CHF 22


Contact persons
Kathleen Bühler, Project Management Swiss National Museum, Tel 044 218 66 85, kathleen.buehler@slm.admin.ch
Michael von Graffenried, photographic artist, Mobile 076 381 58 08, graffenried@mvgphoto.com, www.mvgphoto.com