Photovoice Projects
Photovoice is a participatory research method that combines photography with focus group discussions to amplify marginalized voices, raise awareness about social issues, and reach policy makers (Wang and Burris, 1994). A part of the Exploring Community Knowledge Survey-Ongoing (ECKS-O), this first Photovoice research project engaged several drug checking community partner participants.
The project goals were:
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To assess the barriers and facilitators to conducting successful community drug checking programming
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To uplift the voices and experiences of drug checking technicians
If you have an idea for future Photovoice research project topics or communities to engage with, please email us at maddsbrandeis@gmail.com!
Photovoice Gallery Events
Highlighting the Voices of Drug Checking Technicians
Please view a selection of the images and quotes gathered during Photovoice focus group sessions.
Photo by Él Martinez
“The drug checking logo [is my] past and the trainings I’ve done and what I’ve invested into the work I’m doing. The lighter is something I carry with me everywhere and share with whoever needs it as the present and something that is constantly at the center of my life and with me where I go, whether it’s at my house or out on outreach. And then the OPC [Overdose Prevention Centers] sheet just has me thinking about the future. I’m very unsettled by the fact that the future of OPCs are in the hands of politicians. As someone who participated in lobbying from ages 14 to 18, I spent a lot of time talking with politicians, working in the State House, and I just don’t have faith in that system…At the same time, I also understand that [policy decisions] are the way forward. I feel like I captured a lot of different moments and moving pieces in this photo.”
Photo by Anonymous Participant
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“If somebody comes at me and they're [saying] 'You guys are enabling'... What we are doing actually works. We're preventing the spread of HIV, we're preventing the spread of Hepatitis C. We're giving people safer options to use, we're giving them resources to reduce their risks of overdose...we're talking about harm reduction practices...it's proven to be successful.”
“I feel like education is, besides love, that one universal vehicle that elevates people. Even the worst critic that is against everything, hopefully if you educate them properly in a way that they can relate to it and see the benefit of it, then, their response will change. Maybe not to how you want it [to], but [their views] will go in that direction a little bit. So we strive to provide a lot of education…When we’re going out in the field, for example, and we give somebody a fentanyl test kit, [we ask], ‘Do you know how to use it?’...we’re providing [them] with education.”
Collage by Kyle Harrington
“This piece is my attempt at exploring the oppressive barriers to offering drug checking in our community while holding space for the radical hope and liberation that harm reduction embodies. The police officer running toward the center offers a depiction of criminalization and surveillance, enforcing fear and power-over control rather than care. The hourglass, entangled with gnarled roots and skulls and a burning candle, signifies the urgency of the crisis brought on by prohibition and the violent systems—stigma, punishment, and intentional systemic neglect—that constrict the possibilities for safety and survival. The hand reaching toward the sky and breaking through the clouds offers a reminder of the resilience, resistance, and beauty that is possible when people who use drugs care for one another, despite a world that constantly tells us we are unworthy. The raft, with its delicate structure, reflects the precariousness of harm reduction and drug checking—constantly at risk of being dismantled by stigma and prohibition—yet still offering a fragile respite from the turbulent waters created by the war on people who use drugs. Below, the group of people supporting a trust fall illustrates the relationships that make this all possible. Harm reduction is a movement built on trust—between people who use drugs, harm reduction workers, and communities—a trust born from consistently showing up for one another in the face of...or maybe more accurately, in spite of...systems designed to fail us. And, the lone figure mid-trust fall embodies the courage it takes to navigate this landscape, to use drugs, and to do this work while navigating the violent landscape of prohibition.”
Photo by Anonymous Participant
“I think incentives can be barriers. My personal philosophy in this field is, I want to give as much as I can to whoever comes in and is wanting or needing...But, to be the gatekeeper of resources and goods, whether it is stuff we have on the shelves for folks, hygiene products, or a stack of McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts gift cards [is challenging]. When I have a person in front of me that has three things and I’m trying to decide, ‘do I give somebody three gift cards, one?’...What qualifies?...As a harm reductionist, it’s a difficult place to be: to say ‘No’ to somebody.”
“We were getting a lot of fake samples from [offering incentives]..I’ve had it happen to me...I opened up the wax bag and scraped it out and...ran it on the FTIR and it was soap...it affects our work too, when we’re trying to figure out what’s in the drug supply...It’s heartbreaking sometimes because I wanna be able to be like, ‘Here, let me give you a couple bucks because I know I can’t [run] the sample...So it’s a really hard barrier to not want to cross. But also, want to cross. It’s like a double-edged sword. Again, it’s one of those things that you can’t fight it and you can’t beat it.”
Photo by Maurice Newman
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“How tolerant are the police?...If I was a substance user, I wouldn’t want to walk with my drug sample to the site for it to be tested. Because, what can happen to me between where I’m coming from and where I’m going? The cops are everywhere and everybody who asks for harm reduction in the city will tell you that people in the substance use and homelessness community are being targeted by cops. Personally, I believe that [this] is a very big issue, it’s a big barrier to drug checking in the community for those reasons.”
Photo by Anonymous Participant
“I was reorganizing my outreach bag and playing around with the negative filter on the camera…As a person with my own neurodiverse expression, a lot of times ‘black and white’ is the go-to: all or nothing, it’s good or it’s bad. But if we really do that introspective look at ourselves, I often find, there’s still a lot more layers, a lot more to it. So then expanding that out to drug checking…I think it’s us [that break down barriers] . We add the color, otherwise, it is just molecules and data…Drug checking can offer that little bit, or shed a bit of light on something that is just so dark and mysterious and scary. Until you look at it then there are ways to address it and reduce [harm].”
Collage by Kyle Harrington
“The eye is like a symbol of using our senses as a drug checking technology. We can look at things and smell things and notice color and taste and that can offer us quality information about our supply. And then the parachutes are a cut from a color guide from a reagent test kit. It’s a little bit of a joke about ‘testing your landing gear. There’s a piece of graph paper on the top right which is like, drug checking can feel scientific sometimes, but then there’s some messy art supplies on the bottom right… just some of the ways that drug checking can feel creative too...The snail is like, 'start low, go slow.' And also, snails are vulnerable and exposed in some places, but also have this protective shell, and drug checking is one of our protective things that we can do as people who use drugs.”
Photo by Maurice Newman
“The cones represent that barriers exist. And the notes on the cones are potentially--some of them are the barriers themselves—but also a way through the barrier. And then on the car…How do we advance drug checking throughout all these barriers? Community outreach. You provide education through community outreach. You interact with clients. You interact with stakeholders. You provide education and hopefully using that narrative, we’ll get to a better place in terms of advancing drug checking and harm reduction.”
Collage by Gabby Nardacci
“The reason why I put BSAS [Bureau of Substance Addiction Services] funds drug checking statewide [as] my headline is due to the fact of [overdose] decreases and how drug checking helps with decreasing drug overdose; how it prevents overdosing…[Hopefully policymakers] would eventually realize that this is a needed [service] statewide.”
“Something I’m noticing about the composition, it’s kind of disorienting; you don’t really know where to look. I was sitting with [my co-worker] when we got the news about the participant who died and also when this article came through and I said to her, ‘it doesn’t feel like we’re not losing people,’ and just how disorienting this news was to get.”
Photo by Anonymous Participant
"All of this is taking place on top of a folding table, which gives it a sense of impermanence...it has been working out so far, but it's hard, because I'd like to show [all my equipment] off to my co-workers, but I try to keep [my work station] to a bare minimum...I believe this work is important and is worth navigating choppy waters. I think you're right [about the folding table representing a sense of impermanence and need for greater institutional support]. While this wasn't fully intentional, I do want to be ready to pick [my equipment] up and move it at a moment's notice, so it's not a bother or burden."
“Something that I keep thinking about is how...yes, reporting results to a client or participant: that can be important and meaningful, but I think it’s not as important as the connection and the destigmatization that occurs when somebody comes in to me with a sample.”
Collage by Gabby Nardacci
“I have the big ‘Believe’ because I believe that if we continue this work and we continue to get information out, [drug checking] is going to change and people are going to start talking about it differently…There’s people that are hearing [about drug checking] through the grapevine and people are coming in and asking questions more. That’s ultimately what we want; [for folks] to be more educated and knowing what they are doing. And I’ve seen it a lot in [one of my communities] where people are starting to implement it in their harm reduction practices because they want to know.”
Photo by Kyle Harrington
“The whole week I spent drug checking [at a music festival] really showed me what was possible for drug checking and what happens when we integrate it as a core practice of harm reduction in our communities. Before the festival even started, early entry days, there was a three-hour line of folks waiting to get their drugs tested before the festival began. A lot of the people waiting in line were also suppliers, wanting to know what they were going to be supplying at the festival. It was really moving, it brought me to tears many times throughout the day. To see people so deeply caring about themselves and others was really powerful.”
Collage by Gabby Nardacci
“What does harm reduction look like five years from now? Can people who have way more power than us come in and just wipe it all out? Or, they come in and say ‘you can do this, but this is how you’re gonna do it.’ It’s like any other political government problem or law or policy; they’ve all come up with their own rules rather than looking at the data of what’s helpful and what works and...that’s why there’s the ‘hear, see, speak, shush, but proceed with caution’...That’s why I had to put caution tape because [drug checking] is [a] very, very touchy type of work that we’re doing because it could be super helpful or it could go completely south with whoever gets involved.”
Poster by Anonymous Participant
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“People who use substances are all humans first. You know, we’re humans first and then comes substance. So we have to always remember, do not look at the situation. We don’t look at the circumstances, look at the person and provide assistance to the person.”
“I wanted to [make] a flyer to put in the hospital [I work in] or any places that people are going to stop and read…There are hospitals that sometimes treat people [who use drugs] badly. We will [ask] our patients, ‘Can you go [to the hospital]?’ and they say ‘No.’ And you see how much our community has a lot of stigma…I think if we had a community where everyone would help…or not judge people just because they are using drugs, I think things would be so much better.”