Naming A Crisis

a co-creative art installation

Taking Grief out of the shadows...

In April 2026, BC will mark 10 years since the government declared a public health emergency. More than 17,000 people have died from toxic drugs in that time. Our art installation uses audio and visual components to show the scale of the crisis. In a powerful tribute, the names of people killed in the toxic drug crisis will be projected in a large public space. While watching the names scroll past, people can hear the names and stories of people who have died.

This co-creative and interactive multimedia art installation illuminates the act of collective grief, taking this crisis and the grief that accompanies it out of the shadows.

It will premiere in April 2026 in Victoria, BC, Canada. More information to come.

Participate in the Project

This is a collaborative project focused on highlighting the humanity of the toxic drug crisis. The art project honors the victims and their families with photos, names and personal stories. The names of people killed in the toxic drug crisis will be projected onto a wall. While watching the names scroll past, people can hear the names and stories of people who have died. Please fill in any of the fields below. Use of any photo provided will be at the discretion of the artist.

*Terms & Conditions

The images and text submitted may be modified at the discretion of the lead artists to meet the technical or artistic standards of the project. This will be done with the utmost care and respect and only when absolutely necessary. As part of the entire project, the images and text submitted may be seen in promotional images of video of this project.

Information received will not be used or stored for any purposes outside of the Naming a Crisis art installation.

Project Leads

Stephanie Harrington

Stephanie Harrington (project co-director, researcher) has worked as a journalist and communications professional for over 20 years in Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria. She is working on a memoir about her brother Ian who died from toxic drug poisoning in 2020. In May, she completed a two-week residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts for its Literary Journalism program. She and Amanda co-facilitate a grief group for people who have lost siblings to substance use-related harms.

Amanda Farrell-Low

Amanda Farrell-Low (project co-director, researcher) has worked as a journalist and communications professional in Victoria for over 20 years for outlets like CBC Radio, Monday Magazine, the Times Colonist and more. Her current day job is doing communications for the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria. She is also dedicated to creating placemaking projects that build community and embrace collective grief, such as the Wind Phone at the Royal Oak Burial Park, which is in memory of her younger brother, Liam, who died of an overdose in 2012.
Website: https://linktr.ee/robpwindphone

Marie Metaphor Specht

Marie Metaphor is a multi-disciplinary artist, poet, performer, teacher and spoken word coach living and working in gratitude on the unceded and traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples. She is the 6th Poet Laureate Emeritus of Victoria, BC.
Whether encountered in print or performance, Marie’s poetry leads with compassion. She aims to create moments of intimacy and connection with her work, tapping into that particular collaborative magic that happens between an artist and an attentive audience. Marie performs at a wide variety of venues ranging from literary festivals and interdisciplinary arts events to poetry slams. She has published poetry with Oratorealis, Untethered Magazine, The Chestnut Review, The Hellebore, and Room Magazine, among others. Her debut full-length book of poetry, Soft Shelters, is available at Write Bloody North.
Marie’s visual art takes many forms. From film, painting and mixed-media collage to collaborative, sound-reactive lighting installations, the unifying element is a celebration of beauty and connection. She has exhibited work in galleries, art festivals and outdoor venues across Western Canada.
As an educator, Marie has witnessed firsthand the empowering and transformative nature of these art forms. She knows art not only has the ability to change lives, it can also save them. Marie firmly believes in everyday acts of intrepid beauty. She believes in the power of stories shared.

Laura Dutton

Laura Dutton (she/her) is a photo/video-based artist working and living in Victoria, BC on the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples. She is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Victoria and received an MFA from the University of Victoria in 2011 and a BFA (Hons.) from Concordia University, Montréal in 2006.

Dutton works with photography and video installation to unravel the materiality of lens-based images and disrupt our ability to look straight through to the referent described. By obscuring, degrading, or removing the subject matter altogether, her images reveal their own process and become distilled suggestions of what once stood before the lens, offering an epistemological space for the viewer to meditate on the act of seeing and knowing.

Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Deluge Contemporary (Victoria), The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art (Kelowna), Esker Foundation Project Space (Calgary), PAVED Arts (Saskatoon), and VU Photo (Québec City). She’s taken part in group exhibitions at the Commons (Royal Bay), Saskatoon Nuit Blanche, VMF Winter Arts Fest (Victoria), The Legacy Art Gallery (Victoria), The Victoria Arts Council, The Vancouver Art Gallery, Franc Gallery (Vancouver), Gallery Jones (Vancouver), Chernoff Fine Art (Vancouver), and Open Space (Victoria). Dutton’s work was included in the opening exhibition for the inaugural year of the Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver, and she was the Québec winner of the 2006 BMO First Art competition. She has received project grants from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council. Her work is included in collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Bank of Montreal, and the University of the Fraser Valley.

Chrystal Phan

Chrystal Phan is an oil painter from Victoria BC whose work focuses on large-scale genre paintings that merge childhood memories, family histories, and everyday experiences of contemporary Canadian life. Since starting her professional practice in 2019 she has received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, four Canada Council for the Arts grants and was a runner-up in The Kingston Prize competition with honorable mention. Her work can be found in the collections of the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Chrystal will manage logistics and serve in a project management role for our Victoria After Dusk project.

Partners

Moms Stop The Harm