FREE NYC EVENT TONIGHT: "A tale of two crises: Reading images of social epidemic" to discuss contrasts between depictions of crack in 1980s and current overdose crisis. Should be interesting! RSVP here: icp.org/events/a-tale-…
Getting started! 
Now Michael Shaw of Reading the Pictures- he looked at race and the Opioid crisis imagery. He quotes the “call for gentler war on drugs” from NYTimes.
Visual language just as illuminating as this language- images of advocates who are white, angel and victim imagery, co-opting AIDS quilts. In contrast to face-down arrest images of black crack users in 80s.
Contrasting images by Eugene Richards from 80s vs today- image of injection in a woman’s mouth in 80s vs a suburban neighborhood today.
Themes- images today are during daytime, families, nostalgia-inspiring, Homes, idealized, and presented as their “best selves”
In contrast to old themes which show derelict apartments, police, unkempt people with crack imagery.
Images today also inspire, narratives of redemption and recovery, people who overcome. Even images of actual use are less stigmatized- they are almost mundane and feed in to domesticity. Kitchen scene.
“Opioid narrative has sidestepped morality- portrayed as guileless and naive.” -Hall. Even police are viewed as helpers in this crisis, administering naloxone to white dummies.
Next Kahala Siegel speaking about her experiences as a reporter. Highlighting that Bronx overdose crisis has predates current crisis- and doctor narrative doesn’t apply.
Showing images of St Mary’s Park, where she took photos on her phone of discarded syringes. She looked for old media stories of the area - to see what had been covered.
She talks about “the hole” where people once injected but after media coverage, it was immediately dismantled. However now we’re dealing w aftermath bc injection drug users still needed somewhere to go.
Kalah speaking about how it became important to de-identify sources and people in images to protect their identities bc prior stories have put people at risk.
Now she’s showing more recent images w sharps containers but that syringes still scattered. Community members are concerned but want better solution bc shutting down hole led to many collateral consequences.
Jeffrey Stockbridge now speaking about Philadelphia experience, sees parallels w Gulch in philly and Bronx’s hole.
Talking about history of Kensington but that industrial changes and white flight changed the neighborhood.
He started photographing the street-based sex worker who taught him about trauma, addiction, and survival. One subject- “I can’t see my son bc I get high; I get high bc I can’t see my son” People shared their stories.
He felt his camera couldn’t capture their stories so he bought an audio recorder. People wanted to tell their stories to him. He had no way of anticipating it. They wrote journal entries too as a way to express themselves.
He learned that sex work and addiction among his subjects were responses to poverty and tough circumstances. It was a larger issue.
Wrapping up w a story of someone who cited #HarmReduction as why he was able to get better and stabilize himself.
Now Dr Hansen skillfully drawing together the dialectics that these speakers highlighted through their work- displacement and removal, navigating trauma through numbing (both PWUD, neighborhoods, and consumers of media now too)
The ethics of revelation but privacy in being journalists- subjects who want to tell their stories but also must be protected.
Also the need for trusting relationships between journalists and their subjects and communities, as well as the deeply impactful relationships that PWUD have w one another that are respected and shown in humanizing images.
Kalah speaking about how #HarmReduction communities were not adequately included in conversations about what to do about “the hole” and that they should have more of a voice w journalist coverage too (#ChangingTheNarrative!)
Shaw being invited to speak now about media narrative and political reality of layers including capitalism- “the problem isn’t a black and white one, it’s a green one”
Looking at where overdose narratives emerged on maps shows political lines, racial lines, and class lines.
Now my colleague @kimorocka7 having her moment to highlight that the speakers were all white, that conversation shows the whiteness of media and ways that stories are told. And that the presentation didn’t talk enough abt crack and blackness.
Allan Clear speaking about the need for photographs that show the banality of drug use” by PWUD themselves. There hasn’t been a champion of it- the reality of the majority of people who use drugs.
