Pubdate: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2000 The Province Contact: 200 Granville Street, Ste. #1, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N3 Canada Fax: (604) 605-2323 Website: http://www.vancouverprovince.com/ Author: Jason Proctor EAST-SIDE HEROINES Gripping portraits of female addicts put a human face on the rising toll of drug deaths Much Music's Muchwest program will focus tonight on the heroin epidemic plaguing Vancouver's downtown east side, premiering two music videos by local singer-songwriters. Both videos feature gripping portraits by Lincoln Clarkes, a Vancouver photographer who has spent the last two years compiling tributes to the lives of "Heroines" - female addicts whose faces are the human side of a story usually told in terms of overdose statistics. The statistics themselves are grim. During the three months of this year, 87 people in B.C. died from drug overdoses, up from 67 during the same period last year. Seen here are four of the more than 350 women Clarkes has photographed within a five-block radius of Main and Hastings. He has no titles for the images and doesn't feel comfortable identifying the women or their circumstances. "I have 101 reasons why I started this project," he told The Province. "It's so important that these women and their plight is documented." The videos - which will air at 7 p.m. and midnight - were created by students at Emily Carr after Clarkes gave a presentation of his pictures. The two songs were written by Kat Kosiancic and Suzanne Wilson. Clarke describes his work as "social documentary". The portraits were all taken in gritty black and white and the subjects look directly into the camera. "We see the problem from a distance, we hear about it - but we don't usually look into the faces of the statistics," says Clarkes. "These photographs force people to look into the eyes of the women." - --- MAP posted-by: Greg