East Side Stories – C
I will be exhibiting an art series called East Side Stories in conjunction with The Alley Outreach Project at Art! Vancouver, Western Canada’s largest international art show (http://
East Side Stories features members of the DTES community (we partnered with The Living Room) and aims to share their stories in an effort to shed light on local poverty and reduce stigma of homelessness. Those who knew me in high school know how passionate I was for these types of initiatives through the club I chaired, Global Action Against Poverty. Since I started at UBC, I haven’t had the chance to stay involved, so I was so excited for this opportunity to reconnect.
This portrait is of a man named John (not his real name). John’s foster parents were prominent members of their predominantly white, Christian community. Their peers praised them for being selfless enough to care for less fortunate children. Behind closed doors, however, John’s foster parents brought John up to believe that because he is native, he was savage. They believed that physical, emotional, verbal, and even sexual abuse was justified in order to reduce his “savageness”. John dropped out of school, left home at the age of 16, and spent the subsequent few years on the streets until he entered into an abusive relationship for the next 20 years. Because he had known nothing but abuse in his childhood, it was difficult for him to leave. He attempted to, once, but his partner stalked him and brought him home. Security, familiarity, and financial stability kept him there for two decades despite the violence he endured. Three months ago, John finally mustered the courage to secretly move to Vancouver where he currently resides. Most recently, John has enrolled in a Humanities course at UBC in January, his first time going back to school since the 10th grade, and his first step to pursuing his dream of writing an autobiography.
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