Cloud tome for lost friends (the wheel turns) is a sculpture containing pages of a text I have written by hand that are frozen in place underneath a hard epoxy gloss. The text is a stream of consciousness confessional writing, a meta investigation into the critical theory, personal history and emotional drive for the production of a social practice organization dedicated to the friends I met when I was homeless who I’ve lost to substance use. A wheel formed by drug paraphernalia on the front of the sculpture references the Wheel of Time or kalachakra found in (among others) schools of Vedic theology. Meditating on the wheel is my attempt as an esotericist to grapple with the loss of loved ones by confronting a force that is always turning, and taking, infinitely dragging into it’s undertow, while simultaneously moving us into a new eon, a new social reality.

I have been researching the problem of the inaccessibility of beautiful and comfortable dwelling places– and the forced relegation to derelict and psycho-aesthetically distressing environment– to the most vulnerable demographics of the city. Transubstantiation is a visual totem for the democratization of aesthetically uplifting psychogeographies. Images of spaces in Vancouver catering to the wealthy (a private members club, a high end restaurant downtown) and images of spaces for the very poor (the Balmoral and the St. Helen’s⁠—two notoriously derelict government funded single room occupancies which I visited frequently during my time living in an SRO and in homeless shelters) are juxtaposed as social commentary and effigy for psychogeographic equanimity. This is further by the choice of materials in the work: sub-refuse level and mundane materials—a dirty pillowcase, aluminum foil, cigarette butts—are brought into a fine art context not as a testament to their beauty but as a ritualistic gesture for the elevation of the dwelling places and resting grounds of the under-served.

Another An0ther Prophecy is sculptural recreation of a candid photograph taken in the Downtown Eastside (where the artist used to live after transitioning out of homelessness), of a pigeon’s nest made of discarded hypodermic needles. The photo was taken by superintendent Michelle Davey in May 2017. While the image is a poignant reminder of the state of the Downtown Eastside is in–this is, afterall, how pigeons are choosing to roost, but living people are dwelling in these quarters–the image of the nest is reappropriated to be a potential indicator of the idea of life’s ability to flourish in even the most heart-rending spaces, and the activist-led grassroots movement for systemic instauration, fueled by the urge to improve the wellbeing of the DTES’ residents, gives birth to a promise for cultural regeneration in spite of the inhumanity of these physical conditions.