On the hustle and bustle of one of Vancouver’s busiest bridges is a sculpture perched on a bench. It’s small and easy to miss, but the message is quite loud.
At first glance, it appears like a person. As you approach, it is clear it’s too small to be life-like.
Rather, it’s a ghost.
“I made this to honour loved ones who passed away from [an] overdose. I am scared the world is forgetting them and many others,” reads a note on a piece of cardboard beside the sculpture.
In an Instagram post, the artist known as Lupo said he installed the sculpture on the Burrard Bridge for International Overdose Awareness Day. Since the installation, someone has placed a jacket over the sculpture.
The Beloved Ghosts sculpture has been spotted moving all over Vancouver and doesn’t stay in one place very long.
Before the bridge, the sculpture was near Jericho Beach, Kitsilano Beach and on Denman Street. Lupo started making the polymer clay and wire figurines, that range in size, back in August 2021.
In the same way people leave flowers at memorial sites, the artist said he installs the figurines in public spaces in honour of people he loved and lost.
"I began this series as a very personal memorial to loved ones and expressions of my own grief,” he said.
"I am not alone in my grief, and that our city, like many others, is full of ghosts, some living, many dead.”
Lupo said he wants to make people's shared grief “visible" and promised to continue creating the sculptures and placing them around the city.
On the note beside the sculpture, he’s encouraging anyone to write the names or a message on the actual sculpture.
“I just want you to know you’re not alone,” he wrote.
