Posted On: October 16 2026
Exhibit: Fall 2025
Exhibit Title:
Still Here: A Collection of Doodles of Things That Saved Me
But first, CONTEXT:
Re-Create Studio is a drop-in youth (age 16-24 years old) studio that aims to foster creativity, connection and community within youth populations. They provide a safe ( r ) location and resources for youth to explore and increase their physical, relational, mental, and spiritual wellbeing via art-making. The drop-in studio emphasizes and cheerleads self-expression, exploration, and creation. Youth are encouraged to experiment, observe and learn from one another. Check out the amazing work that they do HERE.
Re-Create launched an outdoor public art installation called the Re-Create Outdoor Museum (ROM). The ROM is a blue mailbox-type cabinet taking on the design / inspiration of the Free Libraries and Trinket Trade boxes you may have seen in your own community.
In 2025, I was invited to exhibit my art in an art installation of my choosing in collaboration with Re-Create. The theme was wellness, so I decided to focus the theme on my own lived experience with suicide. This included my own experiences with suicidal ideation, suicide as a stress response, meltdowns, shutdowns, trauma, and suicidal urges, behaviours and attempts. As well as, my friend who has passed that I became close with in the psych ward. Content Warning - I do speak to these below.
The gallery was filled with miniature boards that displayed little doodles of things that have helped me stay alive, things that I am grateful for, and people that care for me / have cared for me through difficult years of struggling with my own suicidal thoughts and urges. Hanging from the ceiling of the gallery was a mini banner that read:
S T I L L H E R E.
The meaning of the title, Still Here, felt representative of my own tug-of-war experience and understanding of the gratitude I now feel to still be alive, to get to help others, and to get to care for and build a kind relationship with myself, while also, feeling survivor’s guilt, grief for what was, and having to continue to build a life that is, yes, worth living, but also, very stressful due to the impacts of systems of oppression, neurotypical and ableist expectations, living in late-stage capitalism and so many other things I could continue to name that bring distress to so many of us. Not-to-mention, the neurodivergent experience of suicidal thoughts and behaviours as a stress response (ie. the ultimate flight response); and so, in times of high stress or flare-ups, I can and do experience suicidal ideation, even though I don’t want to die anymore. It’s messy, and muddy, and very, very nuanced. Unfortunately, we tend to shy-away from these conversations because they are difficult and many people experience difficulty acknowledging and making space for the nuance-of-it-all.
I designed my own stickers for this installation. The design consists of a hand with a hospital bracelet that says STILL HERE. This was inspired by my own hospital bracelet from when I was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit at 17 years old. At the same time as my hospitalization, an individual from my highschool who was in the same grade as me was also hospitalized - although we hadn’t really ever spoken before, we immediately recognized eachother and became friends. His name was Will. I say was because Will unfortunately passed away years later after we had left highschool and lost touch. I wish we didn’t lose touch - adulting is tough like that. His death was very difficult for me. He gave me connection in a place where I felt absolutely disconnected and numb to everything around me. We spent a lot of time together after the hospital, but we never really talked about it after we got out. He was openly gay in our very catholic highschool where teachers were allowed to openly spew homophobic and transphobic hate all over everyone as part of their lesson plan. He was out and proud and fierce about who he was - I remember admiring that so much, especially as someone who was so closeted that I didn’t even realize that I was gay myself. He died around Pride - and now, there is not a Pride that goes by that I don’t think about him. Maybe he would have liked that; the first Toronto Pride that I attended was with him, and it was so chaotic and messy, but also felt so magical to be surrounded by so many openly Queer people. All this to say, I thought about Will a lot through the process of this project. Grief. Regret. Gut-wrenching guilt. But also, laughter, and gratitude - so much gratitude to have even gotten to spend the time that I did get to spend with him. I wish I could have been there for him, I wish I didn’t let life pull me away; I’ll also always be grateful for the time that I got, and I will never forget the feeling when we locked eyes in the psych ward. Kindred Spirits.
There is something about living in honour or celebration of the memory of loved ones who are no longer physically with us; Paying homage to the people who made such a massive difference in our lives; Doing the things that they would have loved to do, or that we would have loved to tell them about. Will is no longer here, but in a way, he is, in the memories I hold and in the ways I choose to show up in my own life while I am still here.
Lastly, I included a message in the exhibit to invite folks to engage with the exhibit by creating and adding their own doodles of things that have saved / been helpful for them, or, to take a doodle of something that might help them get through the day.
My hope with this exhibit was that people would have an opportunity to share ideas of ways to stay alive during difficult times - information sharing and collaborative coping skills. As well as, maybe, getting people to consider their own mental health journeys and how far they have come / the strides they have made / the resilience and perseverance they have shown. Maybe, also, getting people to consider how hard it is to live in this version of society - how much pressure and stress is constantly flooding us - and maybe, just maybe, presenting an opportunity for clarity of that stress, that work they put in every day to stay afloat, and compassion towards self and others for the challenges we all face.
I also hoped that this exhibit could help start or facilitate conversations about suicide and mental illness for everyone, but, due to my own role as a therapist, especially within the helping / mental health professions. Many therapists and mental healthcare workers are not considered when thinking about suicide, and I have even seen many therapists falsely think that they are too well-trained to experience suicide thoughts or urges. However, many of us have and do experience suicidal thoughts, urges and even behaviours, as well as self-harm thoughts, urges and behaviours. Our jobs are stressful, life is stressful, and we are human-beings who feel and are impacted by that stress. Unfortunately and ironically, there is a lot of stigma within our own field, so many of us are too afraid to openly speak to our experiences without repercussions. Even posting this piece and worrying about the wrong person reading about my own suicide lived experience is nerve-wracking; scary, but important. When we speak out about the things we want to push down, we take the power away from that thing, and often, we’ll find that others are going through very similar things. There is power in connection, there is hope in community.
So, I ask you, reader:
What keeps you alive?
What kinds of strides have you made in learning how to care for yourself?
How do you honour or celebrate the lives of your loved ones?
Where have you been? And, where will you go?
Thank you for reading. Please take care of yourself in ways that you find to be nourishing and kind.