East Side Stories – T

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://www.artvancouver.net/). The exhibit will feature this alongside three other pieces at the Vancouver Convention Center May 26-29.

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.

Joe (not his real name) discovered that he suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and attended his first support group meeting a week before the creation of this portrait. One of the symptoms of the syndrome is his short stature, which deeply affected his self esteem and mental health as he was not respected and subsequently abused by members of his community. He struggled with addiction for much of his life and having recently identified one of the root causes, is now working towards rehabilitation.