An artist has placed his giant sculpture of a burnt spoon outside of a Rhode Island drug manufacturer’s office to protest the opioid crisis.
The Providence Journal reports that 48-year-old Domenic Esposito, of Westwood, Mass., and a partner placed the nearly three-metre-long, 360-kilogram spoon at the front gates of Rhodes Pharmaceuticals in Coventry, R.I., on Thursday.
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Esposito, whose brother has struggled with addiction, says his sculpture is about “exposing this web of influence that big pharma has had on us.”
“It’s really hard not to find people who have been affected by this,” he told WPRI-TV. “The message of the spoon is you’re not alone.”
A spokesman for the company could not be reached Thursday.
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Esposito has previously taken the spoon to Purdue Pharma’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters and to the Massachusetts State House as a gift to state Attorney General Maura Healey.
He says he may engrave the names of people who have died of overdoses on future spoons.