The Prescription Project is a series of prescription form-based artworks created in response to my experiences working in a psychiatric hospital, metaphorising the absurdity of our band-aid approach to health and wellness via mass overmedication and consumerable distraction.

 

Referred to as FP10s by healthcare professionals, the series contains digitally replicated prescription forms defaced with text and illustration, and is pinnacled by 1 Apple a Day, which bears a 1,200-word essay based on Abraham Maslow’s 1954 theory, Hierarchy of Needs. Regarded as a psychological formula for enlightenment, the theory suggests that to achieve this, we must first satisfy a checklist of physiological, safety & security, interpersonal and relational, and self-esteem based needs, and considers a holistic view to happiness. The essay is entirely struck out, with Sertraline (a commonly prescribed antidepressant) printed underneath.

 

There are currently over 600 pharmaceutical companies in operation in the UK alone. Estimated to generate billions in profit each year, pharmaceuticals fall into the top 3 industries currently funding the UK's economy, with the biggest funder being consumer goods. Materialism is the perfect dopamine-producing distraction from a system designed to keep us in a constant state of dissatisfaction, furthermore hindering us from exploring sources that are free of charge, such as presence, connection and community. Capitalism prefers palliative profit over holistically targeted, root-cause treatment. Capitalism thrives on you being unwell.

 

Although modern medicine is a blessing, like any business model, healthcare is no exception to the rules of supply and demand. In 2024, 89 million antidepressant drugs were prescribed by the NHS alone, which is a 3.3% increase compared to the year before. On the surface, this suggests a society with collective worsening health, but what fix is a pill, when the void within us is the absence of self-love? Or when the pain we feel is due to unhealed trauma? What if the treatment for our anxiety is time spent unlearning? They say love heals and is patient, but patience is rejected by a society where time is bought, sold and stolen. But if the root of the problem isn't addressed, the residual stub will bear new life, and you'll find yourself with a lifetime subscription to Big Pharma. Capitalism depends on us remaining in this cycle, if every human being reached a state of true enlightenment, capitalism would not survive.