InterUrban Art Gallery’s new exhibition marks International Overdose Day
Vancouver Coastal Health launches the show featuring works by artists who have lived experience with substance use on August 31
Randy Pandora’s artwork will be featured in Not Just an Art Show: Crisis on Canvas.
INTERNATIONAL OVERDOSE DAY, on August 31, is the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose and to end the accompanying stigma. It’s also a day to remember those who have died and acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind.
To mark the 2021 event, Vancouver Coastal Health is launching Not Just an Art Show: Crisis on Canvas, a group exhibition at the InterUrban Art Gallery, on August 31.
The InterUrban Art Gallery at 1 East Hastings Street, which takes its name from a former tram terminus across the road, is a community art space run by PHS Community Services Society. PHS provides housing, health care, harm reduction, and other services for some of the most vulnerable and under-served people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The volunteer-centred gallery, which also offers arts programming and classes, prides itself on being an accessible and welcoming space for low-income artists and residents to exhibit and develop their work.
Not Just an Art Show: Crisis on Canvas features more than a dozen works by people with lived experience of substance use, including peer coordinators from VCH services. It aims to give people a better understanding of the complexities of the overdose crisis.
The exhibition runs to September 3 and is open daily from 2 to 6 pm PDT.
In 2020, 1,728 people lost their life to overdose in B.C., and the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation.
For more information, see InterUrban Gallery.
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