Reception & Artist’s Talk – September 26 7:30 pm. All are welcome.

Betty Kovacic, A Roomful of Missing Women, 2007. Mixed media installation.
Photo credit: Ken Turner.

There is a dark side to our communities that we push to the sides: the seedy or rough areas of town that we avoid and even seek to abolish. These communities are populated by survival sex workers, substance abusers, street people and others; these are the fringes of our society. We forget that these areas are inhabited by our sisters and brothers who were children once, possessed of dreams; whose lives took a tragic twist, through circumstance or misfortune.

More than fifty women, many of whom left smaller communities like Prince George and surrounding locations to seek better lives in Vancouver, instead, lost their lives in a terrible manner. All but socially abandoned it has taken the grief of their friends and families, to awaken much of society to the human tragedy of their circumstances and begin to challenge the ongoing marginalisation of those that we, as a society, have failed.

A Roomful of Missing Women will be an inter-disciplinary exhibition by Betty Kovacic comprising sound, music, portraits of each of the missing women, and an installation of shrouded blow-up dolls. It will tackle issues that emerge around Vancouver’s East Side. By no means exclusive to it, these issues transcend geography and have far reaching resonance. Confronting realities faced by many survival sex workers, it will provide an opportunity to contemplate life journeys most cannot even begin to imagine.

September 27— November 25