Walk With Me: Uncovering The Human Dimensions Of The Overdose Crisis

×

Expand

CVAG, "Walk With Me," 2020

Walk With Me: uncovering the human dimensions of the overdose crisis

Events, story walks and the artwork and audio created through this project can be accessed in person at CVAG:

Wednesdays & Saturdays from 10am – 4:30pm

September 30 – November 21, 2020 (with the exception of closure on November 11th)

COVID protocols will be followed.

‘Story Walks’ and ‘Events’.

Walk with Me is a project about the overdose crisis in the Comox Valley featuring events and a series of three sound walks – two that weave their way throughout the community of Courtenay and another on site at CVAG. Blending art, community, media and witness practice, the aim is to uncover the human dimensions of the crisis here at home.

It has been four years since the overdose crisis was labeled a public health emergency by the B.C. Government, with over 3,600 lives lost including over 700 in the Island Health region. As artist-researchers, front-line workers and people with lived and living experience, we have banded together guided by core values of justice, unity, respect and knowledge and in a spirit of solidarity to come to terms with the impact of the crisis on individuals and community groups.

Walk with Me is based on the practice of story sharing, where the aim is to cultivate awareness leading to change. In the project, over 30 stories are conveyed through audio recordings, drawings and photographs made accessible through a ‘walking practice’ in which participants are guided via a map to various spaces within Courtenay’s downtown core and at the Gallery. Collective walking as it has been activated through protest, meditation, grief and lost processions as well as community acts of solidarity, encourages a visceral engagement with the stories presented.

We invite you to walk with us as we transform our understanding of, and approach to, the overdose crisis – both in the Comox Valley and beyond. These stories might elicit surprise, enragement, laughter and tears. They might also awaken in you, as they have in us, a desire to transform our community’s approach to this crisis. For us, they form a tapestry that honours the complexity and humanity of those facing this crisis first-hand.

Walk With Me is presented at the Comox Valley Art Gallery in partnership with Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and AVI Health and Community Services, alongside an advisory group of over 15 front-line organizations and people with lived and living experience. It is part of a research project Cultural Mapping the Opioid Crisis. The project has received approval from TRU’s Ethics Office, and activates an ongoing dialogue surrounding its ethical dimensions. We gratefully acknowledge funding received from Vancouver Island Health Authority, BC Arts Council and Vancouver Foundation.

To learn more about the project, visit: www.culturalmapping.ca