Wish You Were Here, Wish Here Was Better
When and Where
Description
Wish You Were Here, Wish Here Was Better is a mobile public event series that makes space for people impacted by the ongoing overdose crisis—and its cascading systemic issues of precarity, houselessness, and criminalization—to mourn, while providing opportunities to imagine and work towards a more just future.
From October 3–9, a van, wrapped in commissioned artwork by Les Harper, will pop up daily at various locations across Mississauga and Brampton, starting at the UTM campus. The van will serve as an anchor for visitors to share reflections, and ask questions about grief, survival, and possibility. The event series will culminate with a community feast on UTM campus.
The project is organized by community organizer and scholar Zoë Dodd, artist Les Harper, writer Theodore (ted) Kerr, and curator-scholar Ellyn Walker. Supported by the JHI's Program for the Arts.
Contributing artists: Les Harper, Dionne Brand, Abdi Osman
The full program schedule will be announced shortly.
Further Reading
See recent contributions to The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the Blackwood's broadsheet series, by project co-organizers:
- Zoë Dodd, contributor to Speaking Out: Researchers on Pandemic-Era Healthcare in SDUK10: PRONOUNCING
- Theodore (ted) Kerr, In Errors We See Ourselves: The Misrepresentations of Robert Rayford in SDUK12: BONDING