Creative Drop-In Spaces

The Creative Drop-In Spaces program is a casual, drop-in art program taking place outside the Prairie Harm Reduction Drop-In Centre and Safe Consumption Site in Saskatoon. Piloted in 2023, in partnership with St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation Healing Arts program and Prairie Harm Reduction, we are exploring the potential of art as a harm reduction tool for health and healing. 

Facilitated by interdisciplinary artists, Kamisha Alexson and Dash Reimer, Common Weal Community Arts provided art supplies and creative mentorship to community members accessing services and fostering creativity in various art forms, like poetry, hip-hop, collage, zine-making, drawing, and painting. The artists distributed art kits and spent time listening, learning, and connecting with the community: the response has been overwhelmingly positive. 

The workshops culminated in the creation of a collaborative memorial star blanket on August 31, 2024, as part of International Overdose Awareness Day. As part of a community street fair organized by Prairie Harm Reduction, community members were given diamonds to decorate to honour loved ones lost to opioid poisoning. The event raised awareness and advocated for additional resources to support our neighbours who are living with addiction on the streets. Alexson and Reimer arranged these diamonds to create the star blanket, spanning four 36’’ x 36’’ canvases. We discovered early in the process that some diamonds would need to be quartered to accommodate the demand, a heart-breaking reality for the Pleasant Hill community after years of toxic drug supply and rampant homelessness. 

The finished artwork was permanently installed inside the Drop-In Centre in October 2024 and is titled Return to the Stars. Local elder, George Laliberte, shared wisdom and blessings at the installation ceremony; Alexson drummed, sang, and spoke about the multi-generational impact overdose trauma has had on her family and our community; Reimer, the current Youth Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan, shared a poem by Mary Oliver about the heavy weight of grief, highlighting the need for mutual care and compassion.

Our goal with Creative Drop-In Spaces is to remove barriers to participation by bringing programming to a place that already serves as a busy and essential community hub.  We endeavour to meet the community where they are and support them in pursuing and participating in artistic programming. This has meant embracing flexibility and adaptability in the timing and structuring of our workshops, and anticipating and responding to challenges like overdoses/administering naloxone, internal community conflict, inclement weather, and open drug use. Through upcoming evaluation and community consultation, we will determine the next shape/season of the program, ensuring that community agency dictates our direction