placebo plushies

clinically adorable

These adorable pills have a very powerful side effect: they can elicit stories.

The placebo plushies project is a communal storytelling effort with the goal of sparking conversations about illness, care, vulnerability, strength, and resilience.

Originally conceived as a craft project to poke fun at medicine and its place in the treatment of (mental) illness, placebo plushies received emergency use authorization during the pandemic lockdown. According to early data, they are 100% effective at bringing comfort to our far-away loved ones.

Placebo plushies now reside in homes around the world. And one side effect is that they have been catalysts for conversations about health, illness, and care.

With this project, I hope to collect and share these stories, one plushie at a time.

Stay tuned!