With “You Can Only Kill Us Once,” TRAUMA presents the first major European show by The Opioid Crisis Lookbook (OCL), curated by Dustin Cauchi, Dasha Zaharova and Samuel Staples, with works by Zaharova, Cauchi and Liam Denhamer.
Manic archival and new OCL video work and imagery merge in an architecture designed by Juvenilia, and inspired by the scenographic drawings of Kurt Cobain. The show unfolds across various temporalities and spaces, with an OST by Bill Kouligas and live music performances by US & EU based artists. An immersive neo-grunge experience; and initiation into the OCL multiverse that will leave all attending changed.
In 1996, the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma unleashed the drug OxyContin, falsely marketing it as a „safe“ opioid painkiller despite its high addiction risks. Purdue aggressively pushed for opioid deregulation, expanding its use from treating chronic pain to any pain. Fueled by billions in profits, Purdue flooded the market as misinformed doctors over-prescribed the drug nationwide.
Deregulation, bribes, and relentless marketing drove mass overprescription, igniting the deadliest public health epidemic in U.S. history; with millions of casualties, 100,000 overdose deaths annually since 2021, 2.1 million chained to opioid addiction, and 200 Americans dying from overdoses daily, as heroin becomes scarcer and viscous synthetic opioids fill the gaps, bank accounts and graveyards fast and steady.
The Opioid Crisis Lookbook (Dustin Cauchi & Dasha Zaharova) was founded by Dustin Cauchi in late 2019 as a reaction to the unfolding North American Opioid Crisis. Its initial objectives were those of mapping out & documenting the crisis by focusing on marginal narratives and offering a re-reading of dominant narratives. Destigmatizing addiction, while celebrating the cultures that the crisis has spawned, in all their monstrosity and sublimity, guilt and taboo-free. OCL amassed a cult following and quickly evolved into a magazine in late 2020.
