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17/9/2008

Jeanne Susplugas

think.21 Contemporary gallery, Bruxelles

Through a multidisciplinary approach Jeanne Susplugas studies the individual's complex relationship with health and the maintenance of his/her body. Pharmaceutical substances, medical instruments and daily bodily maintenance habits are testimonies of our daily interventions to our health and corporeal envelope. For her exhibition at think.21 gallery, the artist deals once more with pharmacopoeia and the medical universe through installation, film, photography and drawings. The issues that the artist explores are obscure and highly worrying: illegal circulation and profitable exploitation of medicine.

When we think about trafficking, we spontaneously think of drugs, prostitution, weapons or the money that's involved. But it is the hand-to-hand medicine sales, which capture the attention of Jeanne Susplugas, from the discreet street deal on the corner to the enormous import/export industry of the drug companies. Blue, green, pink or white pills: these tablets seem harmless.... not really drugs, but there is a danger lurking behind them. With 30 to 40% of the medicines sold in Africa, Latin America and Asia being counterfeit or imitations they become a true teaser! These counterfeit powders in regenerative capsules, or real drugs from the factory, make their way to markets in Abidjan or Shenzen and are of real worry. Every now and then customs confiscate these invaluable goods. We become actually more aware of the phenomenon during the spectacular destruction with road-rollers of these medicines. When it comes to fake drugs in the pharmaceutical world we vacillate between relief that a possible poison has been retrieved from the market and questions on the lobby strength of the powerful laboratories. Unfortunately, with medications, someone's health is at stake.

"PLAN IODE", a film by Jeanne Susplugas and Alain Declercq, is an enigmatic and stressful vision on the vital stakes of health. Every five years, the pharmacy of the armies - an underestimated but powerful institution - distributes to all the pharmacies of France two statutory cardboard boxes containing a limited number of tablets of Potassium chloride, a medicine which comes to fix the iodine to the thyroid, the vital remedy in case of nuclear problem. Attack or incident, the radiations don't seem to care for the political context.... Women and children are supposed to be the first to receive treatment. The others can wait, frighten, or tear each other and buy the medicine in a high price. Everything is allowed in the middle of a nuclear panic. The most humanist will rush to a pharmacy in order to help as quickly as possible, but others could indeed think that a juicy business is developing and that it would be time to protect these valuable goods in a safe place. Shot in ab out twenty pharmacies, this film follows the circulation of this desirable medicine, spreading a doubt on their future use. Shot in simple and effective panoramic view at the back shop of pharmacies, this film shows and conceals at the same moment « what happens» between apocalyptic fantasy and inventory of today's pharmacies.

Jeanne Susplugas (b. 1974, France) lives and works
in Paris. She has exhibited in various museums and gal leries in France and abroad such as le Fresnoy, Musée de Grenoble, Musée d'Art Moderne de St Etienne, Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena, Villa Medicis in Rome, MOCCA in Toronto, Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo and Florence Lynch gallery in New York. Susplugas has also participated at the Locarno film festival and the In/Out festival of Prague. Her work has been included in the public collections of the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne and the Fondacio Vila Casas in Barcelona.

Think.21 gallery
Rue du mail, 21 - 1050 Brussels Belgium
open Tuesday to Saturday 12:00pm – 6:30pm

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