A cul-de-sac is defined as A street or passage closed at one end : No through road; Blind alley : Dead-end : a route or course leading nowhere : a blind diverticulum or pouch (Diverticulum: a pocket or closed branch opening off a main passage).
Cul-de-sac ruptures the boundaries between private and public experience and relocates the site of addiction from anonymous locations and individuals into our own communities. Here, the silent speak, institutional failings are recounted, and the impossible, dialectical nature of addiction is illuminated.
This project reveals the unimaginable by focusing on the shared experiences of individuals and family members challenged by substance use. Statements provided by members of this community are projected from the windows of houses lining main streets in commonplace neighborhoods and onto the landscapes we interact with in our everyday lives. The projections speak to the pervasive silence of this community in crisis - language that evokes the contradictory, impossible situation of drug use, the understandable need for them, and the absolute devastation they demand.