Community arts project honours lives lost to toxic drugs

More than 16,000 people have died from toxic drugs since BC declared the overdose crisis a public health emergency on April 14, 2016. A decade on, nearly five people a day are dying. The scale of loss is hard to comprehend. We know these people. They are our family, friends, partners, neighbours, and coworkers. Their lives are valued. They were, and continue to be, loved.

Our multimedia arts installation seeks to show the magnitude of this crisis, one name at a time.

From April 7 to 26, we will feature the names and photos of people lost to drug-related harms in an audio and video installation as part of a community art show at the Victoria Arts Council space in the Bay Centre on lək̓ʷəŋən Traditional Territory.

This powerful memorial is an act of collective grief that challenges the silence and stigma that often surrounds drug-related deaths. It is also a call to action. Ten years later, how do we stop people from dying in this public health emergency? ​

Participate in Naming a Crisis

Please consider submitting the name of someone you lost through our Naming a Crisis project participant form. If you would like your loved one to be included in our April exhibition, please submit their name and/or photo by March 13.

We would also appreciate photos of your loved one, which would form part of an abstract visual artwork to accompany the names. Use of any photo provided will be at the discretion of the artist. Photos also can be submitted through our project participant form.

Note: You will need to sign in to a Google account to access the participant form, as it is required for us to collect images. If you don’t have a Google account, please email us at namingacrisis@gmail.com and we can figure out an alternative.

Learn more about our team

Artist bios and contact information can be found on the About page.