Oxygen’s window project is entitled O2.
O2 is a window. O2 is Oxygen Art Centre’s off-site gallery.
CURRENT
9 February – 25 March 2026
Rayya Liebich
ROSES OF REMEMBRANCE: Honouring 20,000+ children killed in Gaza
Paper flowers created from documented names of deceased children during the first six months of the genocide.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The Health Ministry of Gaza released a 649-page document listing the names of Palestinians killed between October 7, 2023, and August 31, 2024. In this document, published early in the genocide, 14 pages are dedicated to babies under age one. 200 pages of this document are children. In May 2025, Regional Director of UNICEF Edouard Beigbeder stated that an estimated 50,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza.
How can we grieve such unfathomable horror?
How can we avoid falling into the trap laid out by the oppressors;
to be overwhelmed, desensitized, numb, and fall into despair?
Using the death list as source material, paper flowers were created with help from members in this community to actively mourn the heartbreaking atrocity conducted by the Israeli regime. By creating art we are not only witnessing and sharing what is happening but transforming this pain into an artifact of remembrance. The paper flowers serve as an act of resistance; we refuse to be numb and look away.
This installation is an opportunity to honour each child who had a name, a dynamic beautiful life, and was unjustly killed. During this time when Valentine’s Day symbols bombard our consumer culture, let this also be a time of reflection, mourning, resistance and action: Boycott, Divest and Sanction.
ARTIST BIO:
Rayya Liebich is a writer, poet, and emerging visual artist of Lebanese and Polish descent. Passionate about writing as a tool for transformation and changing the discourse on grief, her work seeks to make room in our culture to honour death and dying as an integral part of living a meaningful life. She is the author of the poetry collection Min Hayati (Inanna Publications), a hybrid memoir entitled Milk Teeth (forthcoming with Pownal Street Press) and in the last two years, she has channelled her rage and grief over the horrors in Palestine into three chapbooks Khalas/Enough, Word Games for Times of Genocide, and Litany of Words I Cannot Read. She believes in the power of words to change minds and hearts, and in the responsibility of artists to be truth-tellers.
Connect with her online www.rayyaliebich.com and on IG: @rayliebich
Image: Paper flower created from documented names of deceased children during the first six months of the genocide, Rayya Liebich, 2026; Courtesy the Artist
PAST
28 November 2025 – 16 January 2026
Bethany Pardoe
The Small Earth
Illustrations printed on paper
15 August – 21 October 2025
Michele Dupas
Alien Flora
Ceramics
26 June – 13 August 2025
Ojan Cromie, Michele Dupas, Craig Huff, Terry Huva, Martha Stokoe, Phaedra Urban
Facilitated by Emilie Leblanc-Kromberg
ArtSpeak
Group exhibition
13 April – 11 June 2025
Kalika Bowlby
Call and Response (2025)
Ceramics, natural materials installation
27 February – 16 April 2025
Anne Fromont
Life-Changing Love (2025)
Photograph prints
11 October – 13 November 2024
Jennifer Burke, Samonte Cruz, Bee Schroeder
Purple Pain (2021)
Felt, leather, mesh, paint, glass, brass, fine silver, gold, black onyx & found objects
“Purple Pain” music video – Outside the Box (Nelson & District Arts Council), 2022
9 August – 9 October 2024
Hannah DeBoer-Smith
Tubby Lady’s Terrarium
Clay, cardboard, polymer clay and a bunch of other junk
5 April – 3 June 2024
It Could Mean Everything
Artist: Tracy Fillion
Medium: Embroidery on linen
8 February – 3 April 2024
Why?
Artist: Marcus Dénommé
Medium: Mixed media (silkscreen print/collage) on stretched kitakata paper.
Dimensions: 25” X 30”
4 December 2023 – 8 February 2024
Ink & Moon Collective: Calendar Retrospective
Artists: Keiko Lee-Hem, Myra Rasmussen, Melissa Owen, Slava Doval, Carron Mulligan, Rayya Liebich, Gina Sanche, Katie Sawyer, Catherine McIntosh, Tammy Everts, Andrea Levin, Brandy Erin, Nikki Pelletier
17 November – 1 December 2023
WORM/HOLE: youth print exhibition
Artists: Lokina Comishin Kromberg, Gabby Asbell, Sylvie Thomas, Ella James, Seveyah Bilodeau, Katherine Wall, and Morgan Pesicka