Pharm-lands

This research takes the form of a creative documentary film to describe and interpret how the pharmaceuticals have shaped the landscape specifically looking at the impending crisis of the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the environment. The research focused on Hyderabad, India–the pharmaceutical research and manufacture capitol–and specifically on the Musi River, a hotspot for antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is what happens when a medicine becomes a pollutant, but also what happens when agriculture, urbanization, and industrialization meet at the river. The particular contours of the antibiotic resistance crisis give us an opportunity to redefine human health in the more-than-human world and through a One Health perspective, reorienting our understanding of human health and ecological health as one that is inherently interconnected. Fundamentally, this research asks how something can be both a medicine and a poison? For whom? Beyond the human? This is not merely a threat, but also an opportunity to redefine an ecological consciousness and develop a more just and resilient form of human-ecological interaction.