The new London gallery will open its doors for the first time with a season examining the issues surrounding addiction and recovery. 

This new exhibition and events programme will examine the cyclical processes of addiction and recovery as well as questioning how society continues to feed and sustain both.

HOOKED will explore how addiction is a fundamental risk of being a modern human amidst the backdrop of the criminalisation of drugs, and the addictive nature of new technology and social media.

The season will feature new commissions from scientists and artists including Mark King working with Professor John Marsden; Katriona Beales working with Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones; and Dryden Goodwin, Angus Scott-Miller, Mr Gee and Professor Kim Wolff working with Oakhill Secure Training Centre. Artists and photographers also featured will include Rachel Maclean, Richard Billingham and Olivia Locher.

With voices on the science of addiction from King’s College London, including researchers from the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, the season will be formed of installations, interactive artworks and immersive experiences. The aim is to get visitors thinking about challenge the stigmas associated with addiction, consider addiction as a health issue we are all susceptible to, and explore how recovery takes many forms.

Developed in association with with people who have a lived experience of addiction HOOKED features established and up-and-coming artists and photographers from across the globe, including Rachel Maclean’s Feed Me; photographs from Olivia Locher’s Another Day on Earth series; Richard Billingham’s Tony Smoking Backwards, Playstation and Jason Chopping; Melanie Manchot’s Twelve and Joachim Koester’s The Hashish Club.

Talking about the season, Hannah Redler-Hawes, Curator Producer of HOOKED, said: “We must challenge long-held beliefs and stereotypes to consider what addiction is and how it affects us all. Working with Science Gallery London to bring academic researchers and young people together to probe contemporary culture and social structures has been an amazing journey. This season casts a critical eye over the much-talked-about and complex topic of addiction and I hope visitors will find the topic as surprising and as rich an area for debate as I have.”

HOOKED will be on display at the Science Gallery London from the 21st September until the 6th January 2019. For more information visit: https://london.sciencegallery.com/news/hooked