a place for us all

Abby Nowakowski and Irimé Rankin

Part of Coalesce Residency
Cultivate Art Commons
1–30 April 2026

During this residency, we thought about the vital role that CTS (Consumption and Treatment Service) play in our communities, especially as the province continues to strip funding from these essential and life saving sites.

Our work was exploring how policies often write out the most vulnerable. How local and provincial governments choose to pour funding into destructive development projects labelled as jobs that will “protect Ontario”, while defunding public services and resources that actually keep Ontarians (both human and wildlife) safe.

With this residency we asked who has the right to belonging, who keeps us safe, and how harm reduction is a sustainable form of community care. Echoing the ongoing work of centres like Integrated Care Hub, we wanted to sew a tent to bring awareness and the conversation of health care rights into the gallery.

a place for us all, uprecycled fabric, linocut, screenprint, and ink, 2026

Coalesce Artists-in-Residences transformed Cultivate’s Main Gallery into a dynamic space for creation. The month-long collaborative residency brought together artists—randomly paired—to experiment, exchange skills, and create new work.

It was a space for risk-taking, connection-building, and strengthening our local arts community.

Artists Abby and Irimé constructed an over-sized tent built up of found fabrics, hand painted designs, screenprinted motifs, linocut peek-a-boos, and lacey cutouts that acted as dream-like lookouts.

A cross between quilt and shelter, this installation calls to action of policy makers and hopes to inspire folks to consider that harm reduction is healthcare.

Photo credit: Abby Nowakowski