HART Project
Karen Chan, artist/nurse, founded Human Art Randomized Trial 🎥 to tell stories often left untold! as an outsider. In 2012, I became a registered nurse.
In 2009, I started drawing random people (of all sorts) from Hastings Street in an effort to change perceptions of the infamous Downtown Eastside (DTES) in inner city Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. My sense of fear quickly jumped out the window, and I began to try to see the community through its own eyes vs. My desire to advocate for understanding of a thriving community and not judgment or fear grows each day. Featured in the Vancouver Observer: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/thescene/2011/09/01/six-drawings-capture-complexity-and-humanity-vancouvers-downtown-eastside
Developing an art and dance healing kit!
09/21/2026
I am spending my birthday researching “moral injury” and also feeling grateful for a world of support.
This is the consequences of humanitarian work.
Community. Today is a day for prayers for peace, so I will start with my own peace of mind.
And wishes that communication and a commitment to community could at least mitigate some conflicts.
Everywhere.
Again.
We will be transitioning our work to Matartu Media this month!
Asante sana,
Karen Chan
Hello/Bonjour!
We will be amalgamating most of our content to
Patreon at www.patreon.com/matartu soon. Here’s a short update. 🙏
09/20/2026
Maybe, it is seemingly insignificant but this is the sweater I was quietly sad in, then one night a whole bevy of drunk boys all tried it on and declares that it looked good on everyone and this was my medical/art/sexual health kit when I lived in a tent in 2023.
It now has a red silk shirt in it for and for me. We did enough & maybe I saw too much. It’s ok to actually be mad, sad, glad and quietly proud. Advocacy sometimes just takes an incredible amount of stubborn effort.
A mural by me for for humanitarians & a quiet show of support for fellow nurse, Simon Mauchline, who is trying to hold CADUS accountable in court case currently in 🇩🇪. He was detained & tortured in Syria.
Feather is 💡 light. 🪶
Hi there handsome fellow 🐴
What an interesting moustache you have there!
I’ve been doing dance again
Maybe I actually never really stopped.
It ebbs and flows much like my fear of the cops
Quite honestly, the last few weeks have been a mo*********ng lot!
Askingfor accommodations in
3 caring/ jobs
only to be told over and over again
Our or
You doesn’t mean much
Just quit if you can’t do it all.
So maybe it’s time to work for myself again.
And find crazy beautiful
Visibly and invisibly disabled
Rejected dolls, mercurial geniuses
Fellow synesthesians who care too much
So we can laugh then plot together.
The feels have been hitting.
It’s ok to feel a lot!
09/08/2026
Just a fellow nurse here 🖼️ ⚖️In solidarity with Simon Maucheline & team fighting for CADUS to remember its . The emergency room nurse I painted didn’t survive her deployment and was target.
A lack of compassion & proper support is inexcusable after terrifying incidents like a kidnapping. Please exercise in the face of violations. We deserve a right to justice & care! 🩺. ⛈️. ☔️…….⚖️🇩🇪
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