LOVE LETTERS TO TURBULENCE

Love Letters to Turbulence is a durational participatory project (Aug 21 2026 - Aug 21 2029) that invites reimagining ideas of identity through exploring the affects and effects of trauma in and on a being/body over time. This multi-layered project traverses what it feels like to live with trauma through exploring how we hold and share related autobiographical narratives.

Highlighting the uniqueness of where each viewer/participant might be at any given time in the non-linear journey of survivor to survivor, survivor to supporter, supporter to survivor, and supporter to supporter, while honouring the importance of agency, self-regulation, and co-regulation, Love Letters to Turbulence offers spaces to creatively explore these realities, inwardly and outwardly, providing external resources for support if needed.

The travelling exhibition is site-specific and includes a non-linear 600+ page autoethnographic ‘manuscript,’ Safety Blanket, a quilt for survivors to communicate states of overwhelm, seven collaborative zines by contributing artists Joy Gyamfi, Kira Pratt, Leah Abramson, Lichen, M-A Murphy, Marieke Helmke and Sonja Ahlers, artist-led interactive workshops, and, co-created with web designer Randy Walton, the Love Letters to Turbulence Digital Container, actively online alongside the project’s durational timeline. This Digital Container invites and shares anonymously contributed autobiographical narratives relating to trauma, support, and healing. Showings may include some or all of these parts to different degrees.

Love Letters to Turbulence evolves through community participation.

Donated workshop artworks and online contributions to the Digital Container become part of the ongoing and final exhibition, allowing the project to expand, create space for, and hold many voices over the three years. Moving away from silence, stigma, and fixed narratives, beyond what is traditionally offered (isolation, over-exposure, behind closed doors), Love Letters to Turbulence offers opportunity to explore, witness, and communicate the a/effects of trauma for both survivors and supporters internally, and together if they choose.

Love Letters to Turbulence aims to provide an inclusive and safe(r)-enough space. You are invited to engage with this project at your own comfort level: become a sharing partner, view the existing works and/or participate in a workshop, contribute online through the Digital Container, and/or simply observe. Agency and choice are central to this work, choosing not to participate is equally meaningful.

You are encouraged to experience this project more than once, as it will continue to shift throughout its presentation over the next three years.

All events are free.

PROJECT LAUNCH SHOWING

THIS Gallery
Aug 21-30, 2026

216 of the 600+ ‘manuscript’ pages were hung across several flush-to-the- wall clotheslines, alongside Safety Blanket, a quilt for to communicate nervous-system overwhelm, and the seven zines. Spaces on the clotheslines were left empty at the opening reception, filling over the show’s duration with works donated through the three indoor sign-up workshops and the one outdoor drop-in workshop, becoming a new show by the end of the closing reception.

Opening Reception + Digital Container Launch
Sat Aug 22, 12–4pm

Closing Reception, Artist Talk + Outdoor Public Drop-in Workshop with Angela Fama + Sonja Ahlers
Sun Aug 30, 12–4pm

Sign-up Workshops with Angela Fama + Patricia Ruiz
Sat Aug 22, 5:30–7:30pm
Fri Aug 28, 6:30–8:30pm
Sat Aug 29, 5:30–7:30pm
For more info on these workshops CLICK HERE

Love Letters to Turbulence was launched on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ First Nations.