Downtown Eastside Arts
Vancouver: Public Dreams posts W2 Storyeum as new site for Illuminares
The Public Dreams Society has announced the venue for Illuminares will be at the newly renovated W2 Storyeum on 151 West Cordova Street. The group recently told the Straight that the annual lantern procession would be moving from its Trout Lake location to the Downtown Eastside on July 24. The new location was first announced [...]
Vancouver: Gallery to showcase photography of inner-city residents: “Random Perspectives: February 2010″ running June 25-30 at the Gathering Place community centre
In February and March, a dozen inner-city Vancouver residents took to the streets armed with digital cameras, basic photography skills and decidedly different perspectives in a town buzzing with Olympic excitement. The Gathering Place, a community centre primarily for low-income people, had provided them with six Canon Powershot 8480 digital cameras and a handful of [...]
Downtown Eastside Small Arts Grants Project gives Vancouver artists a chance to advance careers
Twenty-five years ago, Casey-Dale Bowman wasn’t sure about his future and dabbled in the construction business, while pursuing his love of photography as a hobby. However, when he tore his rotator cuff, the Downtown Eastside resident decided to turn his hobby into a career. He attended courses at a local college and relentlessly documented his [...]
CUPE BC Sponsors DTES Festival for National Aboriginal Day
A four-day celebration of aboriginal culture and communities in the Downtown Eastside – culminating in National Aboriginal Day on June 21 – promises to be an empowering event for the Lower Mainland’s First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples and an eye-opener for the non-native population, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees. The June 18-21 [...]
Vancouver:Illuminares lantern procession moves from Trout Lake to the Downtown Eastside
The Public Dreams Society is moving its popular Illuminares lantern procession from Trout Lake to the Downtown Eastside. Although it’s mainly the result of the B.C. Liberals’ cuts to gaming grants, the move also allows the annual festival to find its stride in a new neighbourhood, according to the festival’s artistic director, Sam Shem. “We [...]
Vancouver: Hank Bull steps down from Centre A
Hank Bull has announced he’s stepping down as executive director of Centre A. In a letter of resignation to his board, Bull said his reasons were both personal and professional. After years of arts administration, he wants to return to his own artistic practice. He also stated a new executive director for the gallery of [...]
How art thrives under the scars: Busy artists pour their talent into the soul of a battered neighbourhood
Whoever first called Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside “the poorest postal code in Canada” sure came up with a potent and durable five words to describe the place. And there’s no getting around it. Walk through the area’s streets and alleys, and you’ll witness any variety of lives broken under the wheels of drugs, drink, mental illness, [...]
B.C. arts community anxiously awaits budget: Already hit by cuts, arts groups are hoping to see some funding restored in tomorrow’s numbers
In 2008, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell presented Vancouver Moving Theatre’s Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling with an award recognizing their work for the arts in the Downtown Eastside. A year later, the Campbell government eliminated their annual gaming grant, cutting $45,000 from the tiny company, amounting to a 20 per cent budget cut overall. As [...]
Heading to the Downtown Eastside for the swankiest party of the Games
Michael Ignatieff looks slightly stunned as he pushes his way into the packed reception at Bob Rennie’s fantabulous private art gallery in the Downtown Eastside with his wife Zsuzsanna on Wednesday afternoon. “Is this a church?,” he asks, gazing upward at the soaring ceilings and high windows that permitted beatific light. Then he went into [...]
From bars to brollies, Bright Light shines
On most late-winter nights at the corner of Hastings and Carrall streets, a cruel wind blows. The weather and the place conspire to produce a chilly kind of angst. Now, however, and for the next few weeks, the cold and the dark are dispelled by a project of temporary public artworks and events. Titled Bright Light, [...]
Inside W2, Where the Cybertribe Works and Parties Olympics hangout for independent media offers tools, discussions and dance blowouts
“Look,” says Mark Smith, who is in Vancouver from Toronto to experience the Olympics. “It’s cauliflowering.” Smith is pointing to his computer screen, showing me an unfolding analysis of Twitter activity during the opening ceremonies. An online application on his laptop maps the tweets of, among others, VANOC and W2 Community Media Arts, the social media hub [...]
Inside the ‘Phantom Galleries’ of the Downtown Eastside: Behind unmarked storefronts lies a vibrant art scene. How to find what’s on display during the Olympics
While the Downtown Eastside is known as Canada’s poorest postal code, it’s also the cultural capital of this country, some argue, boasting more artists than addicts. And while the international media has descended upon this neighborhood in order to show the dark side of our sparkling Olympic city, what’s missing from the story is its [...]
Inaugural show at Audain Gallery reaches out to Downtown Eastside neighbours
First Nations/Second Nature exhibition examines some of the misrepresentations of aboriginal culture over the years The first full exhibition at The Audain Gallery at SFU Woodward’s explores ideas of contested territory and nationhood through the diverse works of several internationally and locally renowned artists whose work deals with first nations-related themes. The focus on first [...]
Massive subculture and media party to coincide with Vancouver Olympics
Is the juggernaught of Olympics coming to town? Police clamping down on activists? Olympic security denying your reporters press clearance? Then the W2 Culture + Media House is the place for you. Set across the street from the soon to be reopened Woodwards housing redevelopment in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, the folks at W2 have rented [...]
SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts digging its new digs
Step into the courtyard of SFU Woodward’s off Cordova and you’ll see a huge, permanent illuminated photograph installation by Stan Douglas that highlights the history of conflict in the Downtown Eastside. Douglas recreated a scene of the Gastown Riot, which occurred Aug. 7, 1971 at Abbott and Cordova, in a parking lot near the PNE [...]
