“Addicts are weak. Let them die.“ In the USA, 130 people die every day from opioid overdoses. But it’s not just addiction that kills, it’s the stigma that discourages people from seeking help.

To save lives, addiction must be seen as a disease that changes the brain, not a weakness.

To demonstrate this, and combat the ugly stigma, we created something beautiful–a brain made of 9000 flowers. And to be disruptive, our flower brain was placed outside Macy’s Flower Show in New York.Initially seen as part of the flower shower, visitors were shocked to see what was happening to our brain flower.

Over 3 days, 300 handmade black paper poppies, representing opioids, gradually took over the brain. We handed out educational brochures and pins of support. And through an AR experience visitors interacted with the poppies and removed judgmental words that arose from the deadly flower. This challenged the visitors to change their own language around addiction.

On the final day, visitors became part of the solution. They removed the black poppies; symbolizing the removal of stigma and the return of the brain to its natural healthy state. Each black poppy stem was wrapped with an anti-stigma message of hope. Hope stems from a brain flower that is changing minds, and helping to save lives.