Miss Bugs | Do No Harm - The Dispensary
Viewing room

Miss Bugs | Do No Harm - The Dispensary

Miss Bugs

Jealous North

29 Sep 2022 — 30 Oct 2022

Jealous North is honoured to have Miss Bugs’ newest installation Do No Harm – The Dispensary on show after its super popular launch at the Jealous HQ in Shoreditch.

Mashing up the worlds of contemporary art, big pharma and fast food this exhibition is not to be missed. 18 months in the making, Do No Harm – The Dispensary features hundreds of supersized capsules and tablets. Among the artworks are 800 vibrantly coloured, poured resin capsules, each containing a discarded junk food wrapper.
Every capsule in the installation is unique, with more than 100 variants from corporate giants like McDonalds and Coca-Cola, to childhood favourites Hubba Bubba and Monster Munch. Also featured are the remixed ‘Fast Chalk’ pills, cheekily mashing up the recognisable shapes of Viagra and Oxycontin with familiar fast food slogans like ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ and ‘America Runs on Dunkin’’.
Inspired by a sleepless night watching TV commercials in a US motel room, Do No Harm – The Dispensary unpacks the themes of addiction, advertising and unchecked consumerism that have come to characterise the Do No Harm series. The installation also interrogates the role that art itself plays in this, drawing on modern and contemporary artists like Warhol and Hirst to explore the longstanding relationship between art and consumer brands.

Capsule S338 - Twix

Capsule S295 - KFC

Capsule S163 - Toffee Crisp

Capsule S200 - Hubba Bubba (Original)

Miss Bugs says: “Imagine a world where Willy Wonka doesn’t want to give you a golden ticket; he just wants to get you hooked. Judging by American TV, that’s the world we’re already living in; slice of pizza in one hand, remote control in the other, eyeballs glued to a non-stop carousel of Coca-Cola, followed by Statins, then back to Burger King, then returning to Valium. Back and forth – junk to meds – on every channel. Consumer capitalism has won!”