In this provocative art installation, drug users write their own obituaries

In Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto’s west end, a cluster of purple ribbons flutters in the breeze. Above, the words “We miss you” are woven into the chain-link fence that surrounds the tennis courts. 

Each piece of fabric — there since International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) in August of last year — represents someone from the community who has died by overdose or drug poisoning, who is at high risk of overdose death or who has been otherwise harmed by the ongoing public health crisis. 

The installation was created by a group of harm-reduction workers and drug users who were mourning those they had lost. But they formally banded together as the Harm Reduction Advocacy Collective (HRAC) after Ontario proposed the Community Care and Recovery Act, part of Bill 223, which would shutter many supervised consumption sites in the province. 

The group wanted to protect the services at these sites — including overdose prevention, naloxone training, testing drugs for fentanyl and other contaminants, and needle drop-offs — and began meeting once a week. Now, the collective has over 200 active members, including many directly affected by the government’s bill. 

“I am a person who uses drugs,” HRAC member Joseph Ascenze says in a press release. “I am also a husband who lost his wife to drug toxicity and the war on drugs.”

Bill 223 went into effect on April 1, closing down nine supervised consumption sites in the province, including four in Toronto, and resulting in a marked increase in overdoses at the city’s drop-in centres. 

For International Overdose Awareness Day this Sunday, the HRAC is adding the word “still” to the “We miss you” installation as a reminder that people continue to die from preventable overdoses and are now doing so at an alarming rate. 

It will be part of a community vigil, which will be preceded by an art installation and symbolic funeral procession.

Starting at 1 p.m., an audiovisual art installation titled In Lieu of Flowers will be on display in a converted shipping container at Scadding Court Community Centre and will feature mock obituaries written by drug users foretelling their own deaths: “deaths by overdose, drug poisoning, preventable illness, state violence or at their own hands in utter despair.” 

There will also be a shrine and images and newspaper articles documenting deaths in the community in recent years. 

Audio recordings of people reading their obituaries will be accompanied by instrumental music by HRAC members. On-site grief supports will be available, as well as naloxone and overdose-response training.

“When you walk into the space, we’re hoping that folks feel the overwhelm of the crisis and the gravity of the loss, while also being able to pull out individual stories,” says HRAC member and artist Taylor, who asked us not to use their real name for fear of harassment by those who think the HRAC encourages drug use. 

The project was inspired by the impersonal way overdose deaths are often portrayed in the media, often with statistics. 

“We want to present this so that when you zoom out, you can see that amorphous piece, but when you come into the space, you can hear and see the individualization of each person,” Taylor says. “It’s a group of individuals who are really loved and who are really missed.”

The title is meant to make a request of the broader community, according to an artist statement: “In lieu of cards and delicate words, we ask that you reach out to your struggling neighbours in solidarity and care. In lieu of well wishes, we ask that you get trained in how to use naloxone, here today or whenever and wherever you’re able, because those who are targeted by these laws don’t need flowers — they need to f–king live.“

Following that, the HRAC will lead the funeral procession to Trinity Bellwoods through the back alleys and streets where overdose deaths often occur. At the park, the community will speak of those they have lost. 

“Many of the folks that are in this space are artists, and we really believe that art and activism are woven together,” Taylor says. “The obituary writing has been a grief exercise, but also a way to creatively express that grief.”

After Bill 223 passed, the HRAC asked its members — including musicians, poets, illustrators, screen printers, collage artists, painters, sculptors and metalworkers — to express their pain and share messages with the wider community through their art.

At every meeting, the HRAC sets aside tables and rooms where people can go to take a breath, decompress and make art when the discussions get heavy. In the spring, members began collecting art made at those meetings and started an impromptu zine club, which resulted in the collective’s first zine, End the War on Drugs. 

Published in April, it features collages, illustrations, and poems and has information on harm-reduction supplies and supports in the city. 

Homeless people in the collective will distribute physical copies of the zines to shelters and encampments so those without internet access or a phone can read it.

“We are seeing a rising dehumanization of people who are homeless and of people who use drugs, and that is really scary,” Taylor says. “We continue to lose people every day, and so [we’re] translating our experiences and fears into something that folks can receive through poetic prose and music.

“Not everybody feels comfortable at or engaged enough to participate in protests, but everyone can feel the impact of art.… So we’re leveraging that impact to send a message that these are people who are loved and who deserve to live.”