Power Plants: Intoxicants, Stimulants and Narcotics

Please note that this exhibition has now closed. It took place from 14 September 2024 to 2 February 2025.

From peyote to tobacco, for millennia people have used the psychoactive properties of plants as an integral part of social, ceremonial and religious life.

In many parts of the world, plants of power – whether this be spiritual, economic, mind-altering or cultural – are regarded as sacred. They are valued for their capacity to deepen human relationships, facilitate communication with ancestors, and heal the sick.

Power Plants: Intoxicants, Stimulants and Narcotics featured objects, sculpture, yarn paintings, digital works, textiles, plus a selection of Japanese art, to explore the important role that stimulants and intoxicants continue to perform within societies.

The show referenced global artefacts that are connected with the traditional consumption of tobacco and snuff, betel nut, kava, tea and palm wine, alongside an exploration of the sacred, hallucinogenic cactus, peyote. The exhibition showed works by contemporary artists such as South African artist Sethembile Msezane (b.1991) and Mexican artist Guadalupe Muñoz (b.1974) and featured newly commissioned work from Togolese-British artist Divine Southgate-Smith (b.1995).

The green tea section, set out as a tearoom for a ceremony, was curated by Mr Yasuhiro Yamaguchi, a Urasenke School tea ceremony practitioner and teacher.

Power Plants: Intoxicants, Stimulants and Narcotics was part of a six-month season of interlinked exhibitions and events that explore the question Why Do We Take Drugs?