From 1999 to 2023 nearly 645,000 people died of an opioid overdose, from either prescription or illicit drugs. More than 80,000 of these overdose deaths occurred in 2021 alone, which was 10 times the number of opioid overdose deaths in 1999. The numbers continue to climb. The Opioid Project: Changing Perceptions through Art and Storytelling (The Opioid Project) is a response to this escalating epidemic. Started in 2016, the project is a collaboration between physician and Health Story Collaborative founder Annie Brewster and visual artist Nancy Marks.
Using art and audio storytelling as its foundation, The Opioid Project seeks to provide a safe place for those affected by the opioid epidemic to explore and process their personal experiences. Through artmaking and storytelling, we seek to decrease stigma and promote positive social change through community dialogue, education, and advocacy.
Most people want to believe that the Opioid epidemic is something that is happening ‘out there,’ not connected to those who they love, work with, or befriend in their communities. The dominant cultural narrative is that addicts are bad people, often criminals, who come from dysfunctional families. This stigma, grounded in fear, misinformation, and lack of empathy, harms us all.
In fact, we are all touched by, and vulnerable to, this public health crisis. The human costs of the epidemic involve not just individuals living with substance use disorder, but also the family members and friends, the first responders and frontline workers, co-workers and neighbors, business owners and teachers. All of us, young and old. No community is spared.
The Opioid Project works with community partners to address the opioid epidemic on two levels. First, by hosting workshops we create time and space for those touched by the opioid epidemic to express themselves and to heal. Second, we use the created art and audio to educate the public, and ultimately to challenge dominant cultural narratives about addicts and addiction to decrease stigma.
How the Opioid Project Works
The Opioid Project consists of 4-hour art making and audio storytelling workshops for individuals touched by the opioid epidemic, including those who have lost a loved one to overdose, individuals in recovery, first-responders/front-line workers, and nonmedical caregivers. Participants create collages and share their personal stories about their experiences. Subsequently, the finished work is hung in community multimedia exhibitions where each artwork is paired with its audio story, which can be easily accessed using a QR code. The art and recorded stories contextualize and bring to life the human costs of the epidemic.
We work with community partners to identify local participants and to disseminate the created art and audio stories by hosting community events. We have worked with partners in more than ten Massachusetts communities and as far away as Fairbanks, Alaska. Exhibits have been displayed in hospitals, places of worship, libraries, schools, and town halls. They have been used as a teaching tool in many different educational and cultural institutions, including the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Tufts Medical School, Mclean Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Fitchburg Art Museum, Newton/Wellesley Hospital, Metro West Medical Center, Somerville NAVE Gallery, Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art (East Boston Watershed), Boston City Hall and as part of a HarvardX online course. To date, more than 60 participants have benefitted from the direct experience of the workshops, and thousands have interacted with the art and the audio stories.
The artwork and stories are also open access, available on this website for all to use for educational purposes and to increase awareness.
Press
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June 14, 2023
“Olivia Bean was 22 when her brother, Nick, just two years younger, died of a heroin and fentanyl overdose. She sought solace through the Opioid Project: Changing Perceptions through Art and Storytelling, which uses personal narrative and art-making to reframe grief. The project is a collaboration between artist Nancy Marks and Annie Brewster, a physician and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.”
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May 13, 2023
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October 18, 2019
Co-founder and creator of the “Opioid Project,” Nancy Marks brought her unique multimedia campaign that helps those who have struggled with addiction or lost someone to addiction cope and heal through art to East Boston. Last week at the ICA’s Watershed in Eastie, the Opioid Project opened during a special teen event hosted by the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center’s Eastie Coalition.
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April 2019
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August 9, 2018
After her son Nick died of a drug overdose, Robyn Houston-Bean said she “tried anything I could think of to heal”: therapy groups, books and articles, Facebook support groups.
So when she heard about The Opioid Project — a visual art and oral storytelling program for those affected by the opioid epidemic — Houston-Bean, who “can’t even draw a circle,” signed up immediately.
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January 30, 2018
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At an exhibit of the artwork at Newton's New Art Center, about a dozen canvases line the walls. Each 20-by-20-inch square remembers someone who has died of an opioid overdose.
Some of the squares are painted, some contain personal belongings of the person, most look like collages. The canvases are paired with audio recordings telling the story of the person symbolized by the art.
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June 30, 2016
Angela Kelly’s brother, Jonathan, died in February, at the age of 35, after struggling with heroin and alcohol addiction for years. He had been off drugs in the months leading up to his death, doing well in recovery until he lost a bed in a halfway house. An overdose on New Year's Day left him hospitalized in a coma. Though he eventually woke up, he died in the hospital.
For Angela, working on an art project and sharing stories about Jonathan's life and death made her feel connected to her older brother, who was himself an artist, giving her a new way to honor his creative spirit and to remember him as a whole person — more than his addiction.
Testimonials
“The personal accounts and the stories from the art project are so moving and so incredibly
honest. I hope the contributors find healing in sharing and realize just how much their words
help others. Stories like these really drive home the fact that we are not talking about addicts. We
are grieving sons, brothers, daughter, mothers, fathers with a terrible disease.”
“This is what we need more of. When we delve into the actual people and personalities in
addiction, it really demonstrates how much addiction impacts the community. Statistics and data
are beneficial and useful, as well. But there’s something about knowing the faces, names,
memories, that really brings it home. It reminds us that those with addiction are regular people
with hobbies, talents, goals.”
“I witnessed the powerful healing impact of the OP on patients, family members, and therapists.
Communities appreciate the opportunity for candid self-expression and a safe space to share
personal journeys, and amidst a rising need for attention to preventing opioid related deaths, the
OP is serving an important community care gap.”
“Partnering with The Opioid Project has been invaluable to our efforts to address the entrenched
stigma in our community. People don't want to accept that Opioid use is real in a suburban
community. The Opioid Project has pushed our community members to have some very real and
difficult conversations and it brought it closer to home.”
About Us
Annie Brewster, MD, co-founder of The Opioid Project, is an Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, a writer and a storyteller. She is also a patient, diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2001. In response to the disconnection she experienced in healthcare, both as a patient and a provider, and motivated by her belief in the power of stories, she started recording patient narratives in 2010. Integrating her personal experiences with the research supporting the health benefits of narrative, she founded Health Story Collaborative (HSC) in 2013. HSC is dedicated to helping individuals navigating health challenges find meaning, and ultimately heal, through storytelling. She is excited by interdisciplinary, cross-institutional collaborations that break through resistance to change. She is widely published in the press and is author of The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss (2022).
Nancy Marks, co-founder of The Opioid Project, is a public health activist, art teacher and visual artist who has been making art for over 25 years. In 2014, she launched The Intimacy of Memory, an initiative exploring grief and loss through art. The Opioid Project is here way of weaving the strands of art, healing, love and moral calling.
https://www.nancymarksartist.com/
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