London-based artist Racheal Crowther has transformed the Chisenhale Gallery into a sensory-heavy, paranoid environment for her first institutional solo exhibition. The installation centers on a decommissioned U.S. military mobile health unit, once used during the 2018 Novichok decontamination efforts, set against walls painted in "drunk tank pink." The experience is defined by an aggressive olfactory component—a chemical cocktail of powdered milk scents and hexadecanal, a molecule found on infants' heads known to manipulate human aggression.
This exhibition matters because it explores the weaponization of care and the industrialization of human biology. By blending military aesthetics with domestic and maternal triggers, Crowther critiques how the state and corporations use sensory "psyops" to manage and control bodies. The work positions the viewer as both a patient and a state asset, raising unsettling questions about the true nature of public health and institutional nurturing in a militarized society.