The Sainsbury Centre’s current season of exhibitions, which tackle some of the biggest questions in our lives, asks: Why Do We Take Drugs?
Down in the lower galleries, sat within the belly of Norman Foster’s revolutionary design, sits Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon – an exhibition which considers the impact of the mind-altering, psychotropic vine ayahuasca within Western Amazonian social life.
Ayahuasca is just one of many psychoactive plants that grow in the most biodiverse region in the world. The creativity of the artworks on display here reveals the incredible cultural role that this one drug has played within Indigenous cultures in the Amazon for millennia.
Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon shows that the ritual consumption of ayahuasca is intimately linked to the artistic production of ceramics, textiles, sculpture, and painting.
The exhibition focuses on the creativity of Indigenous artists of the Peruvian Amazon’s Shipibo-Konibo community, presenting historical objects alongside contemporary artworks by living artists. It is a rare opportunity to appreciate the breadth of Amazonian art, which ranges from the mesmerising abstract geometrical patterns known as ‘kené’ to figurative portrayals of Amazonian cosmologies and spiritual encounters.
In many Indigenous societies, hallucinogens continue to play a role in the determination of social position, therapeutic practices, and the maintenance of relationships with ancestors, spirits, and gods.
Valued for its power to connect humans with the healing spirits of plants, ayahuasca is viewed as a divine teacher by Indigenous Amazonian groups – a definition which far surpasses our notion of a drug.
Within these communities the shaman possesses the authority to prepare, consume and serve ayahuasca, becoming a trusted and revered spiritual guide within their community.
This exhibition explores these traditional Indigenous practices, as well as contemporary Indigenous art from Peru, North America and Europe inspired by the experiences of taking ayahuasca.
New research has revealed how psychedelic therapy may present a cure for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders and addiction. One chemical component being explored is DMT, found within ayahuasca.
DMT has been banned for sale and consumption in the UK by the Misuse of Drugs Act since 1971, while in Peru the traditional knowledge and uses of ayahuasca practised by Amazonian communities, are protected and were elevated to the position of National Cultural Heritage in 2008.
Dr Christopher Timmermann leads the DMT Research Group at Imperial College London, where trial participants are injected with the component before being monitored and interviewed then asked to visually document their experiences.
Dr Timmermann, said: 'The purpose of these trials is to understand how these drugs affect the mind and the brain. We capture the whole range of brain activity and how the brain is completely transformed and disrupted during the experience, and then how it is reconstructed back into a normal state of consciousness.
'The way that DMT affects the brain is massive. We see this massive change in connectivity patterns. It has this immense therapeutic possibility.'
Visitors can hear more from Dr Timmermann and view some of the artworks – featuring depictions of geometry, cities, forests, different beings - which have emerged from the DMT trials, in the exhibition.
Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon is on display at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich until February 2, 2025. This exhibition was developed by the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, as part of the art museum’s Why Do We Take Drugs? Season.
