“You can’t be a part of the community and not see this” – artist, mom gives grief a voice at Cultural Centre

August 20, 2026 · 0 Comments

Artist Tracey-May Chambers had a lot to process when her son, Parker, died from overdose in 2023. There were the unimaginable feelings within that were so difficult to express, the quest to find an outlet to express her grief.

In the immediate days after Parker’s passing, however, an unlikely conversation emerged: just what he would be laid to rest wearing.

That detail was the furthest thing from her mind at the time, she says, “but then I realized how important that was to people.”

As far removed as that conversation was from the things that were important to her, she saw the impact of having something tangible to tell a story, and the story of Parker – and many others lost to the opioid crisis – are now being told through a new textile installation now on at the Aurora Cultural Centre entitled “They are loved – an epidemic of grief.”

“They Are Loved” opened at the Aurora Cultural Centre on Thursday evening and was the focus of an August 13 reception where Gallery Manager Ashlyn Gregory described the enveloping piece as a “site of commemoration and a catalyst” for important community dialogue.

“This installation represents [lives lost to opioids] materially by using textile donated by families surviving the loss of a loved one,” said Gregory. “[Chambers] described her art as a way for her to speak. It occurred to me that not only has she created a way for herself to speak, but she’s made a space for countless others to be heard as well. What an incredible thing to do – to create something that extends the platform and amplifies the voice of others, that makes them feel seen. That’s real advocacy and it makes a difference.”

The exhibition forms a web of interwoven pieces of fabric, each varying by colour, texture, and material, each one representing a life lost, and each life represented in a catalogue that walks the viewers through an emotional journey of who and what each swatch represents.

Holding up a small piece of greenish-blue fabric, Chambers explained to those at the reception that it was a piece of the hospital gown Parker had died in.

“I keep it with me because I wanted to remind myself all the time not just how important he was, but how important all of us are,” she said. “All of the people who are contained in this body of work, all of you here, everyone out there, too. There’s no hierarchy, there’s just people, and I think sometimes we forget that.”

Speaking to The Auroran, Chambers, a Metis textile artist, says much of the work she creates has a basis in a drive for social justice. Working with textiles comes from “not knowing how else to talk about these things,” she says.

“I’m not particularly well-educated or well-spoken, but I can speak in this kind of form,” she says. “Building something out of textiles just seemed like a natural way to do it, considering there was a big conversation when my son died about what he was going to wear. It wasn’t important to me at the time. The hospital sent his hospital gown home as a comfort to his dog and I had to keep looking at that hospital gown. It was messing me up, so my husband put it away and I said I’d figure out what to do with it later. This is what I figured out what to do with it, because I wanted other families to have a voice as well – but in a physical, tangible sense.”

As so many stories weave into the installation, there are additional common threads that bind the individual stories, and one of those pieces is the need for access to care.

“Parker had been on a waiting list for 11 months to get into a space and we found out two weeks after he died that there was a space for him,” she says. “That’s not helpful in a first-world country to not have access to mental health supports for someone who wants them. The caveat is you can’t make someone go into recovery. Parker was ready to go into recovery and get some help, but that is one of the common threads I hear – the stigma around mental health aspects of addition.”

Another common thread the artist found from people who submitted textiles representing a loved one lost to the crisis was a feeling of being unseen and unheard by the powers-that-be.

“Being seen is part of it, and also being connected to someone else, so I think it’s a community created from someone with known experience, with lived experience.”

The catalogue accompanying the textiles themselves has become something of a living document as well, she notes, as grief changes over time. People who have submitted their stories have modified what they wanted to say about their loved one as their grief has evolved, and that is something she has welcomed.

She also welcomes dialogue from the community as a whole, she says, as everyone has been impacted by the opioid crisis in one way or another.

On August 31, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Aurora Cultural Centre and CAYR Community Connections will host a special event in association with this installation to mark International Overdose Awareness Day, which will feature keynote speakers, including Chambers, and information about harm reduction.

“How can you live in a society and not be affected by the things going on around you? What I want them to take away from this is that each story is individual and each of these people was deeply loved, whether they were housed or unhoused, none of that matters – they’re human beings and there is a way through this, right? It’s through community and the most important thing is community.

“You can’t be a part of community and not see this. It’s affecting someone. It affects every single person. You can’t walk down the street, any street, and not be affected by the sun, the rain, the bump in the sidewalk that trips you. It doesn’t matter what it is, you’re affected by the things around you, including this.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter