CITY EASTSIDE CULTURE CRAWL FOUR-DAY ARTS FESTIVAL SHAKES THE MAKERS OF THE EASTSIDE LUIZA BRENNER Getting your monthly fix of culture can be expensive, especially in a city like Vancouver. If you don’t want to spend the big bucks on museum tickets or stand in never-ending lines on street festivals, the options are usually limited. But in <strong>November</strong>, there’s a solution: head east. For the past 21 years, art-lovers and art-curious are encouraged to venture into the area bounded by Columbia Street and Victoria Drive, north of 1st Avenue, to celebrate the city’s vibrant creative community during the Eastside Culture Crawl — an annual four-day arts festival. The two-decade-old event started with a group of artists, in Strathcona, that wished to facilitate a deeper relationship with the community. Esther Rausenberg, the Executive Director for the Eastside Culture Crawl, remembers: “In many ways, we started off as several artists’ buildings that wanted an opportunity to connect the public with our art. We wanted them to see the process of the art-making, so people could get an understanding of how a piece of art develops and evolves.” This year, 30,000 visitors are expected to engage with painters, sculptors, potters, photographers, glassblowers, furniture designers, and much more. This year’s edition of the Eastside Culture Crawl will run from <strong>November</strong> 16 to 19 in studios, homes, and garages, showcasing the work of over 500 artists — from recent-graduates to internationally established ones. The exchange between makers is another positive aspect of the event: “The Culture Crawl is a great opportunity for young and emerging artists to connect with more established ones and who have been around for a long time. They can get advice regarding how to make their studio look, how to price their work, and how to present themselves,” says Rausenberg. VANCOUVER AFTER DARK AUTHOR AARON CHAPMAN EXPLORES VANCOUVER’S HISTORY AFTER DARK CHARLOTTE KARP Vancouver was founded on alcohol. Boom. I said it. It’s not exactly a secret — more a fact that everyone has chosen to forget and one that’s continually being unearthed by Vancouverspecialist and cool-historian-guy, Aaron Chapman. “The general perception of Vancouver has only recently morphed into images of a pretty girl running down a condo-lined street to her Yoga class while trying not to spill her designer coffee, but there’s a deeper, darker Vancouver — not just the squalor of Hastings Street,” says Chapman. Chapman has been writing about 6 Vancouver for around 15 years and is a human-repository of all things shocking, amazing, and just plain cool: did you know Louis Armstrong was denied a hotel room downtown? The Guinness family helped build the Lions Gate Bridge? The Commodore Ballroom’s dance floor literally had jitterbugging in the ‘30s and ‘40s? And Howard Hughes (super-eccentric airplane guy who bottled his own pee) stayed at the Westin Bayshore, didn’t leave his room for six months, and you can now stay in the Howard Hughes Suite for a measly $2,500 per-night? “There are stories shocking, surprising, hilarious, and unbelievable in Vancouver’s The Culture Crawl celebrates the city’s vibrant creative. Attendees can also look forward to a series of workshops and demonstrations to further expand their knowledge of the art-making process. Crawlers will have the opportunity to learn about chainsaw carving, photo transfer, stained glass, ceramics, and wax carving. The invitation is extended to all: “This is an environment that, to many people, is quite comfortable in terms of their first entrance into the visual arts,” Rausenberg concludes. Newcomers and old hogs — all are welcome. The Eastside Culture Crawl will take place from <strong>November</strong> 16 – 19. photo by Xicotencatl Photo by Ideet Sharon-Martin past (and present) that get overlooked by the way real estate agents want to sell a bright, shimmering town,” Chapman adds. “My Vancouver starts at sundown, and the history of Vancouver after dark has some stories people just wouldn’t believe.” You can learn about these things (and oh so much more) from Chapman himself on <strong>November</strong> 16 at Vancouver After Dark, held at Vancouver Lookout. He’ll be pointing out the places he’s talking about, reading excerpts from his books Live at the Commodore and Liquor, Lust, and T=the Law, and showing a range of exclusive posters and photographs from those eras. “A lot of people just have a clean image of Vancouver, which goes hand in hand with what we used to be given as a Chamber of Commerce view of what created the city — sanitized ideas of what defined Vancouver and how the town came to be,” Chapman says. “In reality, this town was built on beerswilling tough people and lawbreakers — and tough people who beat up the lawbreakers.” Vancouver After Dark takes place on <strong>November</strong> 16 at Vancouver Lookout. Bookings essential. #METOO THE COURAGEOUS MOVEMENT RALLYING SOCIAL CHANGE NOOR KHWAJA Vulnerability and social media are two things that do not often intertwine. Accustomed to the filtered perfection of my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat feeds, it is rare to see a post that does not showcase an airbrushed version of real life. However, early this October, I was lucky enough be reminded of the power that social media truly holds. This power ignited from the #MeToo hashtag that spread around my newsfeed,and pretty much the entire world. Sparked by a tweet from actress Alyssa Milano attempting to highlight the gravity of sexual harassment and assault, the hashtag was adopted by fellow celebrities and quickly blew up. It has since been used by over 1.7 million people from 85 countries, each offering support and personal encounters to raise awareness. The movement shocked me in two ways. Firstly, as a young woman, educated and experienced in the universal issues of sexual assault, I was still shocked at the sheer number of #MeToo posts. It felt as though every girl or woman I knew had something to share. While proud of their courage to step forward, it was heartbreaking to see story after story, most of which I was hearing about for the first time. The second thing that shocked me was the delicacy and vulnerability of the posts in my stream. I was not used to dealing with such fragile material on social media and I was nervous for how it would be handled. The airbrushing filter was nowhere to be seen and for a short period of time, life got real. Doing some research on the hashtag, I found that while it was popularized by Milano, it was actually created over 10 years ago by activist Tarana Burke to highlight assault against young women of colour. In her story, Burke explains that when a young girl entrusted her with her own disturbing story of sexual abuse, Burke did not want to hear the details and instead assigned her to another counselor. She heartbreakingly adds, “I watched [the girl] put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all alone and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper…me too.” The guilt in her lack of courage at the time fueled the movement. Her quest to encourage all women to “empower through empathy” highlights the importance that shared experience has in ridding victims of sexual abuse from feeling shame and isolation. This led me to realize that the goal of the movement wasn’t to assess each and every case, but rather to loudly and unapologetically establish a community based on mutual experience and understanding. As an English Literature student, my instinct is always to dissect the actual words of a statement. The phrase “Me Too” establishes an awareness that one is not alone. Therefore, there is always a sense of “other” when posting your own #MeToo story. As the movement grows in the most public sphere possible — social media — it is hopeful that the fear and shame that create a culture of holding in experiences of sexual abuse can gradually come to an end. Sometimes a sense of community is all someone needs to feel like they can be vulnerable. It is always easier to say “Me Too” than to simply say “Me.” <strong>November</strong> <strong>2017</strong>
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