Freyja Catton: The Apathecary

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Freyja Catton, “Apathecary,” 2024

(courtesy of the artist)

Freyja Catton’s installation is a whimsical and existential series of glass bottles and drawings with negative emotions on the labels. In production over the course of a decade, The Apathecary series is inspired by label designs from the vintage “snake oil” elixirs from 1850-1920, the bottle scene in Alice In Wonderland, gallows humour, and the concept of laughter as medicine. Humour plays a crucial role in diffusing tension and encouraging community and support across social demographics.

The concept for this entymologic collection emerged with the wordplay between apothecary and apathy. The bottles vary in size and shape, and the wordplay between labels and the absence of physical material inside makes it ambiguous whether the bottles are intended to preserve “bottled emotions”, or to provide the remedy.