Big Idea: “Addiction Recovery Exhibition Everyone Can Relate To”
Exhibition Name: Hooked: When Want Becomes Need
Client: Science Gallery Atlanta
Date: 2022
Location: Pullman Yards in Atlanta, Georgia
The addiction recovery exhibition Hooked: When Want Becomes Need, meshed art and science together in one cutting-edge display. Dependency was the common thread of this show. This idea united all the artworks. Everyone leans on our fixes in today’s society. We all depend on something, whether it’s a coffee every morning, or an Amazon package every week.
Close to twenty artists from all around the globe helped bring this exhibition to life. We worked closely with each one, and the curatorial staff at Emory University, to create a unique design ecosystem for this addiction recovery exhibition to live in.
There were four themes within the exhibition: euphoria, speed of life, beyond control, and harm to hope. Each theme, and the artwork it was paired with, addressed addiction in a different way. The design of the exhibit labels took on special form factors to express these different themes. We took the classic label shape and turned it on its head for this show.
The first theme was euphoria, the yellow label, which formed a smile. These exhibits dealt with the effect of dopamine on the brain. When one is addicted to something that makes them happy, dopamine is emmitted.
Next was speed of life, the blue label, which gave the standard label shape a slight tilt. This gave it a little bit of visual movement. Visually, this represented the way technology has made our life feel so chaotic.
After that was beyond control, the orange label, represented what happens to someone when they are beyond their limit. That label shape looked like a cliff, someone teetering on the edge of safety and destruction.
Finally, Harm to hope, the red label, was a combination of all three of the past label shapes, but also slightly altered to become its own shape.
Moreover, that theme, and its artworks, was the final theme of the addiction recovery exhibition and marked the exit way. Therefore, the label shape became the culmination of all that came before it. Metaphorically, and graphically, the shape ended up as a battered shape, a person who had been through it all, and who is still managing to find happiness at the end.