pharmakon

‘The stool of a chief, a statue used for worship, an ancestor’s image, a pipe with tobacco still in it, a comb, a vessel to contain food’

YOU HIDE ME by Nii Kwate Owoo (1970)

A personal and global tracing of lineages of substance (ab)use. Elements such as soil, whisky, and molasses - echoing extractivism - are juxtaposed with some of their ritualistic usages. Consumption of culture, race, gender, spirituality, religion, and food is questioned in this offering. With vulnerability and complicity, n:u (melissandre varin) interrogates healing as destruction and destruction as healing.

duration 60min

credit: n:u (melissandre varin), pharmakon, 2026. BUZZCUT Festival. Photo by Tiu Makkonen.

support worker: Gisou Golshani

Photographer: Tiu Makkonen

videographer: Beth Chalmers (@bethchalmers_)

Presented at Glasgow BUZZCUT Festival 2026.

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