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Krokodil, by David Simon-Martret and Blanca Galindo, aka Leafhopper Project, documents the human fallout of one of the most toxic homemade narcotics to emerge from the post-Soviet world. Commonly known as a cheap substitute for heroin, krokodil became associated with severe tissue damage, infection, and rapid physical deterioration.
The project began in 2012 after Simon encountered television footage of users with advanced wounds and skin damage while working in Armenia. That initial shock developed into a sustained inquiry, first in Saint Petersburg and later in TIibilis, where access depended on fragile trust, local intermediaries, and the willingness of users to be photographed anonymously.
The word that emerged was not a document of a drug scene, but a view into the surreal atmosphere that surrounds it: poverty, domesticity, anxiety, and isolation. Krokodil is concerned with what becomes visible when a person’s decline is no longer abstract, and when the systems surrounding that decline have receded. The result is a visual narrative that stays close to its subjects and records, with unusual and dreamlike clarity, the intersection of chemical dependency and human persistence.
About Leafhopper (David Simon & Blanca Galindo)
David Simon and Blanca Galindo are visual artists working in photography and film based between Barcelona, Spain and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. David studied philosophy at UB and photography at IEFC. Blanca obtained her Media degree at UAB and University of California SB.Their work takes in photojournalism, art photography, fashion, music, NGO commissions and commercial projects.
In 2012 David and Blanca co-created Leafhopper, an image based project taking its name from the common cicada, and focused on concept driven long form stories that combine philosophical criteria with powerful aesthetic images creating a reflection on the human and the natural world. In their work as Leafhopper, culture, people, fauna and flora are seen as equal expressions of the natural sublime, creating a common thread across subject matter as seemingly disparate as LGBTQ communities in Malaysia, narco-iconography, coral bleaching and a global study in addiction published in 2019 as ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
Their work has appeared in media such as VICE, Aint Bad Magazine, Fisheye Magazine, Yet Magazine, Playground Magazine, Yorokobu, El País, Bust Magazine, Darwin Magazine, Humble Arts Foundation, Neo2, Libération or JUICE Magazine. Work has also been exhibited at festivals such as Encontros da Imagem, PhotoIreland, Obscura Photofestival, Scan Festival, Art Photo Barcelona, Visa pour l’image, Dong Gang, Cortona on the Move, RPF, and PHotoEspaña.
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