Protection Room – Injection room for drug addicts
Beskyttelsesrum – Fixerum for narkomaner
Part of the public art project “Contemplation Room”, with info centre at Overgaden, Copenhagen and in Rio and London
Curated by Cecillie Gravesen, Lasse Johansen and Kristine Aggergård
2002-2003

One of the great social and urban problems for citizens and businesses at Vesterbro (part of Copenhagen near the Central Station) is the public injection of illegal drugs. The problem is however biggest for the drug addicts themselves as they have to inject under stress and generally miserable conditions. This causes mistakes when injecting, overdoses and infections e.g. by HIV and hepatitis. On this basis I initiated to design a 1:1 model of a physical injection room.

By co-operating with drug addicts and related organisations, architect student Steffen Nielsen and I designed a physical model for how an injection room could look like. The room was usable both functionally, health and cleaning wise. Professional nurses staffed the room. The bomb shelter at Halmtorvet next to the central station was the physical frame for the project. This is one of the three preferred places for injecting. In Danish a bomb shelter is called a “protection room” which I adopted as a title for the project.

The idea was to “translate” all the debate, reports, expert panels and media coverage about injection rooms from the last 6 years into a physical presence. From the written and spoken language into a visual and physical one. To have an actual functioning injection room was another way of facilitating the debate. This is one of the great possibilities of functional art: to give thoughts and concepts a physical form, and thereby raise more facets of a given problem!

The strategy of the project was to use the physical space to raise a debate in the media in order to activate politicians and drug and health experts. Also to let them take the opportunity to discuss the issue in public. Through massive media coverage this was successful! We engaged both local and parliamentary politicians in the debate as well as in making a law proposal.

During January and February I held meetings with all four right wing parties (two from The Government) to convince them about the usefulness and ethics of injection rooms. On the 28 February 2003 a Law Proposal set up by all four left wing parties had 1. Treatment in the Parliament. On the 12 May I meet with the Ministry of Health Lars Løkke Rasmussen. Although he admitted not to have any alternatives that could solve the problems that injection rooms could, he did not want to allow them. At the second treatment 60 voted against and 44 for. But the Social Democrats wants to relaunch the proposal in the Fall 2004 as a new EU report has shows good results with injection rooms in other European countries.

A documentation of the project is in the collections of Køge Skitse Samling (Danish National Museum of Sketches) and Malmö Konstmuseum.

Kenneth A. Balfelt
www.a-r-d.org