Art reflects life in the Downtown Eastside
Michael Geller / Vancouver Courier
March 10, 2015 02:40 PM
March 10, 2015 02:40 PM
As I
listened to an Elections B.C. official describe the voting process for the
forthcoming plebiscite a single thought came to mind: I hope we never have to
go through this again.
What a
colossal disaster this is turning out to be. Thanks, Christy.
As the
ballots are about to be mailed out, I have decided to again leave town. This
time I am off to Paris and Morocco in search of more planning ideas to share at
a forthcoming lecture entitled 12 Great Ideas for Vancouver from Around the
World. It will be presented at SFU Harbour centre on April 1.
But
before I leave, I am participating in an art unveiling and panel discussion
at 6 p.m. tonight (March 11) at Vancouver Community College’s downtown campus.
It is organized by the Vancouver Biennale, a non-profit charitable organization
that celebrates art in public spaces. It brings to Vancouver the works by
internationally renowned and emerging contemporary artists that most people
actually like.
I agreed
to participate in this event since the installation by artist Toni Latour
titled “Let’s Heal the Divide” is intended to provoke discussion about the
divide that has long existed between the Downtown Eastside and the rest of the
city.
For many
years, I have been concerned with how little progress has been made in the
Downtown Eastside despite the million dollars a day being spent on social
services.
Tonight’s
panel, to be moderated by SFU’s Gordon Price, includes Sandra Seekins, a
faculty member in art history at Capilano University, and Romi Chandra Herbert,
co-executive director of PeerNetBC. Panelists are being asked to address the
question whether art can be a catalyst for social change.
To my
mind, there is no doubt that art and artists can be positive agents of change,
which is why I was pleased SFU’s Centre for Contemporary Arts decided to move
into the Downtown Eastside.
While at
the time Jim Green and others worried an art school might lead to undesired
neighbourhood gentrification, I was confident it could help regenerate what
most regard as a very tragic part of the city.
I say
“most” since some Downtown Eastside community activists do not share my view
that this neighbourhood is in desperate need of repair.
While
they urge the city to replace single room occupancy hotels with 5,000 suites of
social housing (and city planners seem ready to oblige), they are not as
troubled as I am by deplorable streetscapes with crumbling buildings, desolate,
empty storefronts and open drug dealing.
As Wendy
Pedersen of the Carnegie Community Action Plan has told me on a number of
occasions, if this is what it takes to keep the condo developers away, so be
it.
Tonight I
will acknowledge that Toni Latour’s art installation may help focus attention
on the divide that exists between the Downtown Eastside and the rest of the
city, but it will not do much to cause social change.
I am much
more optimistic about another public art installation about to happen in
Winnipeg’s inner city. As
reported in Maclean’s magazine, this project by visual artist KC Adams titled
“Perception” asked prominent indigenous Winnipeggers to pose for two photos:
one during which they were to think negative thoughts including the racism they
have suffered, and one while having happier thoughts.
“Perception” asked prominent indigenous
Winnipeggers to pose for two photos: one during which they were to think
negative thoughts including the racism they have suffered, and one while having
happier thoughts.
The artist
then asked her models to label their photos, choosing words that reflect the
way they are often perceived by the wider community, such as drug dealer or
hooker.
Viewers
are then invited to “look again” at the second photo in order to see that the
“hooker” is really “a mother, daughter, girlfriend, sister, high school
graduate, working mom (who) loves apples and coffee and is social assistance
free.” And so on.
The
artworks will appear on billboards, in storefronts and bus shelters and
inaugurate an annual indigenous art project in a city long divided along racial
lines.
While it
will take more than public art to heal the divides in the Downtown Eastside and
Winnipeg’s inner city, I believe it can play a positive role.
Sadly the
same cannot be said for TransLink’s $30,000 contribution to the Main Street
poodle installation that the No side loves to ridicule. Ignore them.
© 2015 Vancouver Courier
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