To Be Belligerent//To Commit To Memory//To Live Without Fear
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
Free Reception April 11, 7-9PM
Exhibition Running April 4 to May 17, 2024 / Tue–Sat / 12–6
To Be Belligerent//To Commit To Memory//To Live Without Fear is an exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), featuring images and ephemera from the organization’s archive. Since its inception, VANDU has acted as one of the pillars of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) community and has fastidiously advocated for the rights and freedoms of all drug users, especially those situated in the DTES area.
In the course of VANDU’s 25-year history, the democratic collective, which comprises current and former users, has become one of the most influential voices in the DTES. The collective has contributed its resources and member-power to engaging with local and global issues pertaining to drug liberation, drug user advocacy and houselessness, best exemplified through the collective’s contributions to the battle for safe supply and safe injection sites in the DTES; its advocacy against prejudice in public policy and government neglect of the residents of the DTES; its harm reduction and community building efforts; and, its guerrilla activism and organizing against the decampment, dispossession, and dehumanization of DTES residents at the hands of the state.
This exhibition survey of VANDU's archival history addresses the arc of the organization’s successes, failings, impact and “being” within and outside the DTES. Through a range of images embodying collective action, intimacy, state violence, commemoration, and the inherent politics tied to one’s being in relation their position and orientation within this world, this exhibition proposes a dissident history of the DTES and problematizes an inflammatory understanding of its residents present in our collective, individual and institutional imagination.
The exhibition’s title, To Be Belligerent, extends from concepts and ruminations present in the canon of fugitive feminist and queer African archival studies that call for epistemic interruptions and disruptions to the oppressor’s archive and attends to Ogheneofegor Obuwoma’s inquiry of what one becomes when their city rejects them and misrepresents their likeness, impact and history. This exhibition pays homage to the DTES residents and VANDU members – both living and dead – who have resisted attempts of erasure towards the goal of securing our collective liberation.
Olumoroti George
Director/Curator
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) was formed in 1998 to bring together groups of people who use drugs. VANDU is dedicated to improving the lives of drug users, their families, and our communities. VANDU is committed to increasing the capacity of people who use illicit drugs to live healthy and productive lives. We do this by affirming and strengthening people who use illicit drugs to reduce harms both to themselves and their communities. We organize in our communities to save lives by promoting local, regional, and national harm reduction education and interventions.
▢ VANDU challenges traditional client/service provider relationships and empowers drug users to design and implement harm reduction interventions.
▢ VANDU believes in every person’s right to health and well-being. We also believe that all people are competent to protect themselves, their loved ones and their communities from drug-related harm.
▢ VANDU is committed to ensuring that drug users have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
▢ VANDU understands that drug use ranges from total abstinence to severe abuse – we recognize that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
▢ VANDU recognizes that the realities of poverty, racism, social isolation, past trauma, mental illness, and other social inequalities increase people’s vulnerabilities to addiction and reduces their capacity for effectively reducing drug-related harm.
Together with the citizens of Vancouver, VANDU works to minimize the harmful effects of illicit drug use by calling for a wide spectrum of effective, compassionate, well-researched interventions such as heroin and cocaine prescription programs, housing for users, and accessible, effective detox and addiction treatment. Illicit drug overdose deaths and illnesses are preventable. And the corruption of our law enforcement, drug-related crime, and the black market for illicit drugs are direct results of the ill-conceived and futile drug war.
Image: Pablo Pincott (June 11, 1961 - July 20, 2023), longtime member of the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society and Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and survivor of the Winters Fire holding up a banner and middle finger during a march in the Downtown Eastside for International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31, 2022. Rest in power Pablo.
