The toxic drug poisoning crisis has blindsided communities, large and small, across the country. Walk With Me utilizes arts-based community action research to make change.
Since the crisis was declared a provincial public health emergency in 2016 in British Columbia, illicit drug toxicity deaths have totalled over 10,160 in the province. For many, the crisis can feel insurmountable. With unconventional roots and methods—born in an art gallery and forged through a pandemic—Walk With Me convenes bold conversations between diverse stakeholders to re-examine the crisis and imagine new ways forward.
We Walk, Listen, and Share
Walk With Me is about deep sharing and close listening. At its core, our work involves the creation and delivery of “Story Walks.” We invite you to take one with us. You can learn about upcoming walks here.
To develop a Story Walk, we listen to People With Lived and Living Experience (PWLLE) of the crisis. We ask PWLLE to share their truths with us with the assurance that we will bring these stories to the public and to power to make change.
Our team includes Peers/PWLLE, researchers, artists, outreach workers, and Elder/Traditional Knowledge Keepers, and we work in-circle where all are equal and valued. We form our mandate by gathering insights from those who have first hand and front line experience of the crisis. We collect stories from PWLLE with the greatest care, rigour, oversight, permissions, protocols, tri-council ethics, and informed consent in place. These stories can be hard to hear, but they are also often beautiful. We honour the stories as gifts that are shared with the intention to help make change. On a Story Walk, after having gathered, distributed headsets, and walked under bridges and through alleys, allowing the stories to wash over us, we sit—most often outside—and we share in circle, speaking to loss, resolve, and change.
To date, in Mid-Northern Vancouver Island, over 1300 people have been on Story Walks including hospital workers and leaders, elected officials, students, institutional staff, and the general public. You can listen to an excerpt from one of our walks to the left by hitting the play button.
We acknowledge that the content of these stories may evoke strong emotions, and we encourage listeners to seek support as needed. Please visit our Resources page to learn more about local supports.
Photo by: Tracy Glover
Photo by: Patrick Dionne
We began outside a small Gallery…
It can feel like the toxic drug poisoning crisis is a big problem that happens in large urban cities. However, in terms of per-capita impact, small cities and communities appear to be harder hit and have fewer resources with which to respond to this big problem.
At the Comox Valley Art Gallery, the crisis is unfolding at our doorstep as it is for so many public facing downtown organizations. As all communities awaken to the fact that there is no one face to addiction, and toxic drugs are well distributed between urban and rural spaces, and as the crisis grows, we must evolve our systems for responding to and reducing harm. We are losing people from all walks of life. If we are to stem the tide, if we are to be bold and honest, stigma and shame cannot persist. We have to listen closely and share deeply.
With these aims in mind, we work across traditional institutional barriers to bridge our hybrid approach to systems change through the arts, health, and action. Our community partners include institutions like AVI Health and Community Services, the Comox Valley Substance Use Strategy, and the Campbell River Art Gallery. Our research proceeds with oversight from Thompson Rivers University, North Island College, Vancouver Island University, and Island Health. Funding for our work is provided by the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Vancouver Foundation, Comox Valley Community Foundation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and through contracts.
We invite you to learn about more about the story of Walk With Me, our team, and how the project is rapidly growing in the tabs above.
