According to the Centers for Disease Control, 47,000 people died from opioid-related overdoses in the United States in 2017. To put that number in perspective, it’s another life lost—someone’s mother or brother or partner or best friend—every eleven minutes.

Opium, as it was traded at the time, was made from the sap of a certain type of poppy. Once it was distilled, dried and formed into balls, it was compact, stable and easily transported. It was smoked through a pipe and, unlike today’s opioid drugs (morphine, heroin, hydrocodone, and fentanyl), rarely fatal. Instead, it rendered its users emotionally and physiologically empty, disrupting fertility, family stability, productivity and almost every aspect of life for generations. It was also the key to British and American success in China: merchants desperate to get their hands on Chinese tea, porcelain, silk and other luxuries finally had a commodity the Chinese wanted as much as silver and this shifted the balance of trade.

Too many families in Massachusetts—right here in Salem, in fact—are touched by opioid addiction every day. We are committed to connecting history to the contemporary crisis and want to acknowledge these families, let them know they are not alone, and to make the gallery a welcoming place for them.

In May 2018 we reached out to WBUR reporter Martha Bebinger, who was working on a series on opioid addiction. Through conversations with Martha, we began to see how Boston’s historical connections to the opium trade fed into issues the city—and indeed, the entire state of Massachusetts—faces today.

Martha also connected us to Joanne Peterson, the founder and executive director of Learn2Cope, an organization in Massachusetts dedicated to helping the families and friends of those living with addiction.

How best to tell this story? Ultimately, we realized that we couldn’t rely solely on objects—not only because we wanted to avoid imagery that supported racist stereotypes and objects that might be triggering for those currently dealing with addiction—but also because the history required more room to breathe and unfurl than an object label or panel would allow. So, instead we focused on storyboarding a five-minute silent video using the contemporary crisis as a jumping-off point to discuss the historical trade. Once our storyboard was approved, we met with the team at Bluecadet, the award-winning digital firm in Philadelphia, who brought our ideas to life.