For Jean-Guy
For Jean-Guy, 2021. Staged and photographed blueberries and hawthorns. Archival print 66" X 45".
Our dear friends Leslie and Giles Hogya recently lost their son Jean-Guy. Here is how Leslie described the day of Jean-Guy's burial.
"The day threatened, there was wind, a storm of snow. Would the burial be postponed? We were stunned to see his coffin draped with the Métis flag. His birth mother, Arlette Adia, whom I met for the very first time at the gravesite, had arranged to honour his Indigenous heritage this way.
My son Jean-Guy Okwala Hogya touched everyone with his dynamic presence. As a friend said, 'He was like a meteor streaking across the sky.'"
Leslie is a member of Moms Stop the Harm, a network of Canadian families impacted by substance-use related harms and deaths. The group advocates to change failed drug policies that contribute to the opioid public health emergency and provides peer support to grieving families and those with loved ones who use or have used substances.