“The Gabriola Arts Council offers 23 interactive workshops: felted slippers, petroglyph land walk with Snuneymuxw Knowledge Keeper Dave Bodaly, mending, vocal expression, professional development for artists, and more.
Instructors have worked diligently to ensure your experience is fruitful and engaging, as we deliver these workshops via Zoom. We offer technical assistance to those unfamiliar with Zoom and during each workshop there will be a moderator available to navigate any technical issues.
We are continuing with Reading and Reconciliation: One Book, One Community with Bob Joseph and Shelagh Rogers and it promises to be a lively and educational discussion.
Sarah Osbourne will delight audiences with her amazing smoky vocals at our closing Arty Party pn April 11th where we announce this year’s Arty Award winner.
There is a little something for everyone this year and maybe some surprise offerings. Whatever you choose you can enjoy the workshops and events from the comfort of your home.”
“FPCC Grant funding supports our communities to revitalize their Indigenous languages, arts and cultural heritage in B.C. Current funding opportunities are available here: https://fpcc.ca/grants/“
“The Community Arts Infrastructure program supports Indigenous arts organizations and unincorporated arts collectives to develop Indigenous workspaces and workshops in order to share artistic skills and knowledge.” For more information: https://fpcc.ca/program/community-arts-infrastructure/
“The Organizations and Collectives grant helps to build administrative capacity and sustainability for the organization or helps to advance the work of Indigenous artists.” For more information: https://fpcc.ca/program/organizations-collectives/
17th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival Wednesday October 28 to Sunday November 8, 2020
“This year’s Festival will be experienced both live and online, as the Downtown Eastside community shares with each other, and our guests, our stories, history, heritage, culture, concerns, hopes, dreams and visions for the future. This Gives Us Strength is our 2020 Festival theme: those sources that our community draws upon as we, like others across the land, cope with a worldwide pandemic, physical distancing and isolation, ongoing and growing displacement, the tragic realities of the fentanyl crisis, and the legacies of systemic racism.”
“FPCC Arts Program deadlines have been extended to October 6, 2020!
Select grants in the Indigenous Arts Program and the Indigenous Music Initiative are now accepting applications for the Fall 2020 intake from Indigenous residents and organizations in B.C.
“In this 1-hour online workshop participants will be dancing, moving, and exploring what each unique dancing body has to say! Learn how to move creatively and connect to your body with All Bodies Dance Project facilitators Carolina Bergonzoni and Harmanie Rose. The workshop is open to participants with and without disabilities. No previous experience required.
All Bodies Dance Project (ABDP) is an inclusive dance company located on unceded Coast Salish Territory (Vancouver, BC). Founded in 2014, ABDP brings together artists with and without disabilities to explore movement as a means of creative expression. The group offers accessible dance classes for adults and youth of all abilities in addition to creating opportunities for diverse artists to practice, research and create innovative, inclusive dance.”
“We accept submissions on an ongoing basis. To be considered for the Fall/ Winter 2020 program, submissions must be received by July 31st, 2020 at 4pm. Submissions received after this date will be considered at a later time
Background: The MPCAS is a 7×4 metre outdoor community and media arts LED screen, located on unceded Coast Salish territories at Kingsway and Broadway in Mount Pleasant. Broadcasting from 9am to 10pm most days, it is programmed by grunt gallery, an artist-run centre that has been in the neighbourhood since 1984. For more information please visit mpcas.ca
*please note the screen does not have audio capabilities, therefore all submitted content is currently limited to image and captioning only.
PLACE: The current programming theme of the MPCAS is PLACE, which looks at a changing Mount Pleasant and Vancouver through works by artists, curators, and residents who live here or are connected to the area, exploring its past, current, and future vitality.
Mount Pleasant was one of Vancouver’s earliest neighborhoods, built along a large salmon and trout creek that ran from the swampy higher grounds down to the ocean — the same path as what is now Main Street. The area became a focus of colonial settlement in the mid-19th century and local Indigenous communities were forced out to make way for businesses that grew into a bustling destination neighbourhood. By 1910, business moved west with Shaughnessy becoming the preferred neighbourhood, and Mount Pleasant fell into economic decline for almost 100 years. With working-class roots, abundant rental housing, and transient tenants, it was the poorest neighbourhood outside of the Downtown Eastside. A community of immigrants, urban poor, and artists created the conditions from which much of Vancouver’s early modern cultural life grew.
Beginning in the 1990s, Mount Pleasant’s gentrification started to take hold, initially through the live/work studio condos that gradually began to appear in the area. In 2010, with the development in the Olympic Village area, aggressive upzoning began, and many residents were evicted from their long-held homes as rents doubled and tripled within a few years. Mount Pleasant’s gritty characteristics suddenly became its new selling points. Developer marketing highlighted its arts community and heritage buildings—although ironically both became early targets in the gentrification process. Mount Pleasant quickly transformed from one of Vancouver’s cheapest neighbourhoods to one of its most expensive, ground zero for the increasing unaffordability of the city.
The MPCAS engages with this complex and, at times, tense history of displacement, creativity, expansion and grit
Participate: Our vision is to provide an urban screen with content received from and responsive to its viewers, in contrast to the advertising/consumer paradigm that is the rule with most highly visible screens in a public space.
As we build a program that reflects, engages with and enriches the complex cultural history of Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, our call for submissions welcomes contributions from artists, collectives, curators and other community members, organizations and community festivals. Topics could include (but are not limited to) identity, language, housing, city streets, food, neighbourhoods, landmarks, loss, memories, narratives of the past, and potential futures.
The racialized, immigrant and working class communities that have been the backbone of Mount Pleasant have also been disproportionately impacted by the economic swings and recent gentrification of the area. Without a doubt, the history of this unique neighbourhood is entwined with colonial legacies and systemic inequities, and we invite submissions that explore the idea of place from the angle of disPLACEment, too.
Generally speaking, submitted works should be ten minutes or less in length and could include (but are not limited to) still images, time-based media, animations, performance works, archival video, interactive pieces, GIFs, experimental video, event proposals, and curatorial/screening proposals.”
“Last year, The Writers’ Union of Canada and the League of Canadian Poets invited selected Black, Indigenous, and racialized emerging writers from the Greater Toronto Area to connect with industry professionals, funding officers, and established authors. Each attendee left feeling energized and inspired about their own writing practice. We are pleased to be able to continue and expand this program this year with Toronto and Vancouver events.
We are committed to cultivating space where BIPOC writers can share tools, strategies, feedback, and knowledge. We are also cognizant of the continuing uncertainties and risks surrounding COVID-19. The Union and the League have monitored announcements from public health authorities and each level of government in Toronto and Vancouver since we launched the conference in April. After much consideration toward the health and safety of each participant, volunteer and staff members, TWUC and LCP have ultimately decided to move forward with adapting both conferences for online delivery.
We are confident that BIPOC Writers Connect will be a fulfilling, exciting, and inspiring event for Black, Indigenous, and racialized emerging and established writers. Amid the uncertainties we are all facing in these unprecedented times, we believe that this opportunity for mentorship and community is more valuable than ever before.”
“REMEMBER THIS is a free, inter-generational, online program engaging people to connect with each other and create films. Reel Youth facilitators will lead guided creative writing and filmmaking activities that will capture people’s experiences, wisdom, and relationship to the land while living through the Covid-19 pandemic. No experience is necessary!
Up to 60 participants from across British Columbia will be selected, based on geographic diversity, to create their own short film. The strongest films will be distributed through Reel Youth & Real Estate Foundation of BC’s online media channels and mixed together in a summary video.
REMEMBER THIS includes six online sessions (90 mins each) for participants of all ages to gather with Reel Youth facilitators over ZOOM and create community through the media arts. You will be introduced to principles of filmmaking as a tool for social change, and practice media production skills by shooting and editing an original short video from home. You will need access to a smartphone, tablet, or a video camera and computer in order to participate.
Sessions are from 10:30am to 12pm PDT on:
Tuesday, April 14 Wednesday, April 15 Friday, April 17 Monday, April 20 Friday, April 24 Monday, April 27
“The MPCAS is an outdoor urban screen located on unceded Coast Salish territories, in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Launched in December 2019, the MPCAS reflects its neighbourhood through artwork by local and commissioned artists, with a special focus on works exploring the area’s history, its current vitality and its future. This art-specific urban screen brings new digital technology to Mount Pleasant and the City of Vancouver with an inaugural year of non-commercial programming around the theme of PLACE, presenting a diverse range of visual and media art by over fifty artists, community members, and community festivals reflecting on what it is to live in a changing Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.
The screen is programmed by grunt gallery on an ongoing basis, via open calls for submissions, community-based outreach, collaborations and curated programs.
Location: Intersection of Broadway & Kingsway, Vancouver, on the side of the Independent Building.
Autumn / Winter Hours (01 October to 31 March) Sunday to Thursday: 9:00 AM to 9:30 PM Friday & Saturday: 9:00 AM to 10:30 PM
Spring / Summer Hours (01 April to 30 September) Sunday to Thursday: 9:00 AM to 10:00 PM Friday & Saturday: 9:00 AM to 11:00 PM”
“ANNOUNCING the 16thannual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival and twelve days of music, stories, theatre, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks. This year’s theme Holding the Light has emerged from the compelling need of DTES-involved artists and residents to illuminate the vitality and relevance of the Downtown Eastside community and its diverse and rich traditions, knowledge systems, ancestral languages, cultural roots and stories.
The mandate of the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festivalis to promote, present and facilitate the development of artists, art forms, cultural traditions, history, activism, people and great stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The festival involves a wide range of professional, community, emerging and student artists and lovers of the arts. Over 1,000 local artists and Downtown Eastside residents participated in last year’s Festival.
