As an agency, representing brands in health or social issues it can be difficult to find a

new edge or approach to these difficult topics. The museum and heritage sector deal
with uncomfortable or difficult issues all the time, because what was politically or
socially acceptable in the past is not necessarily suitable in 2015.

I recently came across an article by Camilla Mordhorst from the Museum of

Copenhagen. The article reviews an installation at the British Museum titled “The
Power of presence: the ‘Cradle to Grave’. The article portrays the relevance of ‘Presence’
in our cultural heritage and the part it plays to connect to visitors.

In 2003 the British Museum opened a new gallery called “Living and Dying” which
featured the ‘Cradle to Grave’ installation produced by a hybrid artist group
Pharmacopoeia. The group mixed art, medicine and culture to create an installation
that has been considered too powerful and overbearing even though after eight years it
still attracts attention.

“The installation consists of a long, low glass case in which a life’s supply of prescribed
drugs are sewn into two lengths of textile and then rolled out as a fictional biographical
life course of an average man and woman. Each length contains over 14,000 pills,
tablets, lozenges and capsules, the estimated average number prescribed to every
person in Britain during their lifetimes. On either side of the case, along the 13-metre-
long pale grey net of pill rows, are objects and photos from various males and females
lives, that represent an ordinary man and woman’s health and illness." (Mordhorst
2009)

“An installation which focuses on the appearance of objects and their substantial
qualities, as opposed to presenting them as realizations of an underlying culture, is
something rarely seen at cultural history museums. On the other hand, this is a very
common way to present objects in art museums. “(Mordhorst 2009) Mixing art,
medicine and culture into one exhibit seem odd for cultural history exhibits however
the results can be a worthwhile endeavour. Are there ideas that could be blended with
other disciplines to create a new hybrid strategy?

“I think that one of the main reasons why the installation works so effectively can be
explained by its capability of producing presence-effects. When entering the gallery, the
installation is ‘in front of’ us. The physical confrontation with the overwhelming
presence of the pills and the tablets draws attention to how concrete and physically the
drugs are part of our lives.” (Mordhorst 2009) This will only work if the objects effect
or relate to the viewer. Are there any interesting quantity ideas that you could apply to a
story, object or brand?

“What is distinctive about the exhibition as a medium is that it includes our own living
bodies in the experience. Nothing happens before we enter the room and approach and
combine the objects and artworks on display. The installation uses this presence of the
viewer’s body to make it the dominant self-reference of the experience.” (Mordhorst
2009) From this quote the words ‘self-reference’ stand out as a clear message of
importance in the creation of ‘Presence’.
“The unique thing about the Cradle to Grave installation is that it lets us ‘imagine’ and
‘feel’ how it is to be ‘us’, thereby realizing vital aspects about the lives we are living.”
(Mordhorst 2009) I have seen this applied to people with eating disorders where they
are confronted in a room with a year‘s supply of their diet eg 365 pizza’s and 730Litres
of choc milk alongside, two large glass jars one filled with salt and the other fat that
reflect their intake over that 12 months. Participants are often shocked and upset by the
sheer volume. It hits home for the first time the reality of what they are creating for
themselves. The difference between this example and Cradle to Grave is that the
installation is not encouraging you to change.

I think it is important that an exhibit or brand experience isn’t telling you what to do or
how to feel, it should just be. People are free to exchange with it and learn for
themselves.

Cradle to Grave is an art installation that tells the story of the health and wellbeing of a
typical man and woman in Britain today

The difference between another exhibition and Cradle to Grave is that the installation
is not encouraging you to change.
The installation tells the story of an average British man and woman told through the
medication they have taken in their life and accompanied by photographs, documents
and objects.

the Cradle to Grave display was more thought provoking for me, it showed the number
of pills, injections, and drugs the average person takes over their lifetime.

There are better (and healthier) ways to live than as an income stream for
pharmaceutical companies…from the cradle to the grave.

Pharmaceutical companies have developed the vast majority of medicines known to

humankind, but they have profited handsomely from doing so, and not always by
legitimate means

Last year, 100 leading oncologists from around the world wrote an open letter in the
journal Blood calling for a reduction in the price of cancer drugs.

drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much -
than on developing them.
Big pharma companies also say they only have a limited time in which to make profits.
Patents are generally awarded for 20 years, but 10-12 of those are typically spent
developing the drug at a cost of about $1.5bn-$2.5bn.

Indeed a recent study found that doctors in the US receiving payments from pharma
companies were twice as likely to prescribe their drugs.

Pharmas are not charity but they are not humans as well. Every new disease or viral
outbreak becomes a money making opportunity for them and even if they have the cure
they don't market it suddenly. They wait for the fear factor to touch the maximum and
then they start exploiting that fear and snatch the hard earned money. Rumour is that
some of the viruses are laboratory made. So they make the disease and sell the cure and
this is why they are not Charities

Making money with people's suffering,

What would happen if someone found a drug to cure diseases such as diabetes, high
blood pressure or even cancer? Would companies be interested in making such a drug
accessible for everyone? Isn't it far more lucrative for them to profit from chronicle
illness that seemingly cannot be cured, and that forces ill people to constantly, possibly
for the rest of their lifes, to buy expensive medicine, with subsequent reimbursement by
health insurance systems, thus is in general by the tax payer?
So Andrew said to me, he said, "What if we stop thinking about these as drugs? What if
we start thinking about them as financial assets?" They've got really weird payoff
structures and all that, but let's throw everything we know about financial engineering
at them. Let's see if we can use all the tricks of the trade to figure out how to make these
drugs work as financial assets?

https://www.sobernation.com/what-the-pharmaceutical-companies-dont-want-you-
to-know/