Designed by West Port architects, this exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre considers the impact of the mind-altering, psychotropic vine – ayahuasca – within Western Amazonian social life.

From the 1950s onwards, drugs were heavily linked with the emergence of the American literary and social movement of the Beat Generation. Artworks produced in North America and Europe speak to the ways in which hallucinogens are transforming the cultural landscape, becoming important for political emancipation, psychotherapy, and personal development.

In many Indigenous societies, hallucinogens continue to play a role in the determination of social position, therapeutic practices, and the maintenance of relationships with ancestors, spirits, and gods. And now, because of the boom in international tourism, increasing amounts of people are now experiencing the effects of ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca & Art of the Amazon will show that the ritual consumption of ayahuasca is intimately linked to the artistic production of ceramics, textiles, sculpture, painting and photography.

Exhibition opens September 2024.