Emergency personnel forced entry into Access Gallery in Vancouver on the night of August 14, after a 911 caller mistook a sculpture of an art preparator as a person in need of medical attention, as first reported by the local media outlet CityNews.
Officers were dispatched to the downtown address after a witness reported “a person’s feet protruding from behind a counter … and believed medical assistance was required,” a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) told Hyperallergic. Emergency responders broke the gallery lock, breached the front door, and subsequently realized it was a false alarm.
As the gallery faces a 1,000 CAD (~$722) repair bill, the incident has sparked online speculation that the witness could have thought artist Allysa Pierre’s “Untitled (the preparator)” (2024) was a person experiencing an overdose‚ a fairly common sight amid Vancouver’s ongoing opioid crisis.
