This Nova Scotia artist wants to confront people with the realities of intimate partner violence

Christopher Quigley wants to create a travelling exhibit that explores the realities of intimate partner violence. (Source: Christopher Quigley)

Last January, Elaine Mosher was killed in Mahone Bay, N.S. She was one of six women killed in what were suspected to be intimate partner deaths in the province in the span of four months.

The Nova Scotia government declared intimate partner violence an epidemic a few months before Mosher’s death.

Christopher Quigley lives in Mahone Bay, and he said the death of a member of his community deeply affected him. He started looking for ways to help address the growing crisis of intimate partner violence and decided to approach it with his art.

Quigley, the executive director of the ALCHEMIA Art Workshop, is spearheading the “Transformation of Dangerous Spaces” project, a travelling exhibition that would confront people with the realities of intimate partner violence.

“This project was born from the grief,” he said. “I’m not an academic or a frontline worker. I wanted to look at this with an artistic lens.

“Art and activism as the engine.”

Quigley said he has fabricated large-scale art pieces for other creatives for the last 20 years, but now he wants to make his own art.

He envisions the exhibition as eight modified bathroom stalls that focus on different aspects of intimate partner violence. According to the project’s website, the different spaces would have written confessions, audio of misogynistic language and a one-way mirror that would make participants feel exposed and watched.

“I chose the bathroom as the room that would present themes of intimate partner violence,” Quigley said. “Put it into a physical manifestation of a room where someone could learn something new and have it be very confrontational.

“As an artist I can take an aggressive approach with this. It’s confrontational and loud and it’s meant to stir up some emotions.”

The exhibition, once complete, would travel around Canada at a variety of venues.

Quigley isn’t aiming to shame or blame men with the exhibit, but rather show how everyone has a role to play in addressing intimate partner violence.

“I’m not coming into this as a saint because I’ve been complicit,” he said. “I’ve had women friends who were in abusive relationships and I’ve done nothing. To say no man is complicit is erroneous.

“A lot of tears, a lot of emotions, a lot of heartbreak that had to go into this. The more stories I hear, the heavier it becomes. It’s a very dark and very sad reality.”

Quigley is currently on a cross-Canada tour, pitching the project to municipalities to get support for it. He also recently met with MPs in Ottawa.

“I’ve presented at almost all of the Maritimes,” he said. “Doing the rest of Canada now. Any community that will let me come in and present to their city council.

“This is an action piece. This is not an awareness campaign.”

Quigley said if he “had a magic wand,” he’d start fabricating the exhibition by the third quarter of 2026. His goal is to get it on the road in the second quarter of 2027.

“This is kind of a modern interpretation of a haunted house,” he said. “Each room is its own horror. You get scared and you are going to feel something.

“Three seconds is how long it takes the logical brain to catch up with the emotional brain. If this piece does anything, all I want it to do is live in someone’s brain and pop up in those three seconds.”

Quigley’s ALCHEMIA Art Workshop, along with Jenna Cadigan, Be the Peace and Harbour House, will help organize a vigil for the 14 women murdered at Polytechnique Montreal in 1989.

The vigil will be held at The Pond in Mahone Bay at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 6 near a bench dedicated to Elaine Mosher.

With files from The Canadian Press

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