Witnessing Each Other: An Intersubjective Stance for Exhibitions Relating to Substance Use and Abuse

Abstract

Most exhibitions are conceived to convey information the experts making the exhibition believe other people need or want. But the notion that the intended exhibition public will cooperate with the exhibition organizers. intent disregards the reasons people come to exhibitions and the way they use them. While the author contends that an exhibition cannot use facts to convince someone to abstain from substances they crave, exhibitions can nonetheless make a difference in lives complicated by substance use by providing representation for voices that are rarely heard and building empathy between witness and witnessed. The purpose of such an endeavor is not to change attitudes or behaviors toward a pre-determined outcome, but to facilitate a witnessing of others. experience. The uniquely intersubjective medium of exhibition can thus succeed in this field by opening the potential of mutual, humanizing recognition among people with varied life experience of substance use and abuse.

Keywords:

• exhibition, relational, intersubjectivity, co-creation, witnessing, contact zone

Notes

¹ The journal's style utilizes the category substance abuse as a diagnostic category. Substances are used or misused; living organisms are and can be abused. Editor's note.

²The reader is reminded that the concepts of “risk factors” and “vulnerabilities,” as well as “protective factors” are often noted in the literature and at exhibits with certitude, without adequately noting their dimensions. Editor's note.

³ Press coverage of the museum can be found at http://www. dnaindia.com/india/report-remembering-bhopal-gas-tragedy-unique-museum-opens-on-30th-anniversary-2040364

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Hennes

Tom Hennes is the founding principal of Thinc Design, a New York-based exhibition design firm. Thinc's work includes exhibitions for the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center, the Freedom Park in Pretoria, South Africa, the California Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco, Naturalis, in Leiden, the Netherlands and Climate + Change, in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal, and, most recently, for the USA Pavilion at the World Expo in Milan. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, is a frequent contributor of theoretical articles on exhibition-making and has and has lectured at conferences and universities in the United States and Europe. Prior to starting Thinc in 1995, he spent 15 years working in New York as a theatrical stage and lighting designer. He holds multiple patents for immersive theatres and three-dimensional projection techniques.