Canvas to the Imagination

Last week I attended the book launch of the “This Is East Van” community project at the Waldorf Hotel. I was really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this because it looked so wonderful from what I’d seen online. Also, there are a large number of people I know who have work in the book, and that’s just awesome.

The project was put together by Erin Sinclair and Jason Uglanica, two East Van locals who love their neighbourhood and wanted to organize a community project. They did a really fantastic job of selecting work to include and curating the flow of one photo to the next. The book beautifully captures what life it like in Vancouver’s eclectic east side.

You can purchase the book online through Cargoh.com.

Thanks to an interesting project by Josh Hite and Scott Billings I had the opportunity to visit the secret stairway under the Burrard Bridge last week. It’s been abandoned since the 1930s, and when I visited I could understand why. I imagine it would be a creepy place at night because it certainly was during the day.

The guy in this photo turned out to be an upstairs neighbour from my building who I never see. It was hilarious to run into him in such a random place. He and his girlfriend were helping out as actors during the filming.

The metal column going down the centre of the staircase was set temporarily for their project of filming the interior of the stairway in a helical movement. I didn’t see much of the filming because they were still setting up but I was really impressed by how much equipment they brought all the way to the bottom of the stairs. The only way in is from the top of the bridge because the city bricked up the bottom entrance ages ago.

There was plenty of ancient graffiti covering the stairs and walls, which indicates people have been able to sneak in there in the past. I wonder if the Department of Eternal Art is still around….?

The whole experience gave me a killer case of vertigo but it was an amazing opportunity to get into this space which is normally restricted from public access.

The most recent addition to the Vancouver Biennale are a series of installations, The Blue Trees by Konstantin Dimopoulos, placed around the lower mainland. Boris and I went to visit the Garden City Park location in Richmond on the weekend, and it was quite an adventure getting there by transit. Well worth the effort though because the seeing the Blue Trees in person is pretty spectacular.

For more information about Konstantin Dimopoulos’ Blue Trees visit the Vancouver Biennale web site.