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BY JAMIE ZABEL PHOTOS BY SYED MUSTAFA *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Most of us feel like we have a certain amount of stake in the future of the coming generations. We want to leave our world, the future world of our children, in good enough shape to allow them to live well and in comfort. This depends so much on the children that are right now entering elementary and middle school, the future world changers and earth shakers. This being so, we pay a great deal of attention to what the generations behind us are doing and how they are acting. Undoubtedly, it was like that for the generations that came before us as much as it is for us now. So, who are these children that are entering the school system, the ones that will one day become our doctors, lawyers, and Prime Ministers? I’ll confess, after my brother left middle school a few years ago, I’ve been quite disconnected from that age group since most of my cousins are already grown. This is where the Vancouver Regional Heritage Fair was so enlightening and, I may say, uplifting. Before I continue with this thought, however, I feel it might be useful to give a bit of context to the event in which I and the students participated. The Vancouver Regional Heritage Fair is part of an initiative run by the BC Heritage Fairs Society affiliated with Canada’s National History Society, Heritage BC, and under the patronage of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. Their main goal is to create an environment in which students have the opportunity to learn and get excited about Canada’s history and the Canadians that made our country what it is today. The...

BY LIAM MCLEAN PICTURES BY SYED MUSTAFA *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society This past month, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Kathy Sayers in her bright and comfortable condo to talk about her experiences with cohousing in Vancouver. In the past few years, Kathy has been working alongside her community at Our Urban Village to integrate a successful cohousing community into the urban space of Vancouver. Along her path to forming a cohousing community in Vancouver, she and her team would face many unique challenges. “Because Vancouver is so pricey, we decided to look at cohousing from a different angle, and that is to try to find an innovative developer that would work with us,” said Kathy. “[The developer] would own the land and we would have less say about what the building would look like. And most cohousing, they [the community] make every choice. They hire the architect and they buy the land. [But] it’s at least 6-8 million dollars in Vancouver.” Over the course of our conversation, Kathy explained to me how her group adapted the cohousing model to make it work within the limitations of an expensive city with its many high-rise buildings. We also talked at length about the values important to building and maintaining a healthy cohousing community, and how these communities thrive on a sense of interconnectedness. By sharing with me her experiences, Kathy taught me about the growing popularity of cohousing in Vancouver and its role in promoting social connections that may potentially solve feelings of isolation in the city. To bring cohousing to Vancouver, Kathy and her group at Our Urban Village had to discover a way to adapt the cohousing community model to the urban city and...

By Haroun Khalid  *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society In March 2016, more than 20 years city planning and policy efforts came together when the City of Vancouver officially purchased 42 acres of land passing through neighborhoods from False Creek to the Fraser River. The new Arbutus Greenway project, already accessible to cyclists and pedestrians, aims to offer a shared passageway connecting Vancouver’s residential and public spaces. What’s particularly interesting about this endeavor is that the Greenway offers an exciting chance to see how public art ventures intersect with the process of urban development. To learn more, I sat down with Maggie Buttle, the Senior Project Manager of the Arbutus Greenway Project, and Eric Fredericksen, the city’s Public Art Programs Manager From an artistic perspective, the realization of the Arbutus Greenway represents a chance to open up new spaces in the city for creative expression. So as to integrate art completely with the design process, Mr. Fredericksen explained that: “We now have an art consultant form a core part of the development team.” On this subject, Ms. Buttle added “this inclusion of artists in the procedure is meant to bring new perspectives and a different focus” to the city planning approach to prevent shutting down valuable opportunities to foster a creative and inspiring city. The development of this “art intelligence,” as Eric called it, enables the planning process to more holistically reflect the cultural environment of the community. The implementation of an urban development plan on the scale of the Arbutus Greenway is a lengthy affair, and is at the moment still in the early days. However, the prospect of bringing about the Greenway has been on the City’s horizon since the Arbutus Corridor was first highlighted as a potential site...

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BY TATIANA ZAMORANO-HENRIQUEZ *Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Over the years the integral humanizing qualities of humanity have become almost non-existent, as our economic model is responsible for prioritizing monetary endeavours rather than the arts. Theses values have fragmented our way of being and devalued the arts as art has now become commercialized for profit and disconnected from our culture.  This almost irreversible divide has hindered our relationships with others and ourselves as it has detached us from our histories, cultures and knowledge.  The formation of this divide has left us stranded and we have become like a wave of sailors trying to navigate the seas without a compass where we have not only lost our sense of direction but also our purpose. However, art has the power to steer us back in the right direction as it illuminates our path by reconnecting us with our origins, which allows us to embrace diversity, and knowledge that then has the potential to lead to community. The world carries with it a kaleidoscope of art forms and rooted within them are diverse cultures that are entrenched with an array of histories and knowledge that shape our values. This is paramount as it is our values that construct the stories that we relay to others and ourselves about what is important. Therefore, it is these values that shape not only who we are as human beings but who we will become and the responsibility we hold to the future generations. Values create empathy and it is this compassion that allows individuals to embrace new cultures and form profound and intricate relationships that have the power to produce viable communities where culture becomes a way of life.  This is why art is integral...

 By Jamie Zabel Photo courtesy of Jennifer Taylor Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Cultural vibrancy. This is a term that we often hear associated with countries in Europe or South America, a term used to describe societies that are very much in touch with their traditions and where they come from. This term has become especially important since 2004, when the UN ratified an agreement making culture the fourth pillar of sustainable development, meaning that the vibrancy of culture is essential to creating sustainable communities. Vancouver just signed on to this agreement last year. While Canada is not as well known for this worldwide, there are quite a few things we can do to increase the importance and vitality of culture in even our local communities. When I met with Jennifer Taylor, the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Kitsilano Community Center, we discussed the role that culture could play in Kitsilano. Excellent arts programming is one essential part of how community centers uphold the place of culture. For Jennifer, an important way to keep these programs dynamic and relevant is to ensure that the programs at the Kitsilano Community Center reflect Kitsilano itself. Part of her job is to ensure that the center continues to represent the community by keeping the board accountable as well as encouraging community members to speak up for what they want or need.  She believes that “there isn’t a lack of willingness to change, there’s a lack of willingness to challenge those who could effect change.” It is heartbreaking for her to know that the people who don’t feel heard or accepted in their community are the least likely to speak out, leading to them giving up and moving rather than bringing their concerns...

By Tatiana Zamorano Photos by Syed Mustafa Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Community is necessary and a crucial element that society requires in order to thrive as community has the power to create culture and sense of belonging, which produces unity amongst individuals and fosters compassion for one another, that then contributes to the wellbeing of individuals and the regeneration of sustainable communities. However, over the years the values and dynamics of communities have changed due to the framework that encompasses us, which has worked to generate a society founded on profit and individualism. This urbanized society has increased the levels of social isolation and self-interest within our societies, which has broken the necessary bonds needed to keep community and culture alive and thriving. So the question that remains is how can we combat social isolation and reignite sustainable communities? Well the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) believes that art is a central tool in creating this vision of sustainable community as, art is rooted in culture which has the capacity to bind people together through profound relationships, that produce bounded solidarity amongst community members that then incites change and builds strongly connected communities.  Therefore, through VACS’s mission art has played a pivotal role in building community and in nurturing and cultivating culture, which VACS wanted to share with the public but not solely through their initiatives. Instead VACS wanted to take their idea centered on the vitality of art even further and focused on how they could relay this revelation of art to others in order to make others comprehend their vision in which art is an essential component in generating sustainable communities and culture. However, the hurdle that stood in their path was formulating a method that...

By Liam McLean Photo Courtesy of Rudiger Krause Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society Earlier this month, I had the great opportunity to sit down and talk to Rudiger Krause, a man greatly interested and invested in the community, art, and human connections. Rudiger, or Rudi as his friends call him, was born in Germany and moved to Vancouver when he was a little boy, where he lived most of his life. As we sat down to talk one early March afternoon at the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) headquarters, our conversation began with the topic of Rudi’s gardening initiatives before shifting into a deeper introspective about human relationships and connections. The importance of relationships to other people, nature, and art surfaced as the overarching theme of our conversation, emphasizing relationship’s important role in the human experience. As our conversation continued, it became increasingly clear that relationships and the connections they foster are an essential element in Rudi’s and all our lives. If we can recognize and overcome the barriers we face when making genuine connections, then we can live satisfying and rewarding lives in relationship and harmony with each other.         Our conversation started with Rudi’s lifelong passion for gardening. Rudi’s interest in gardening and the communal relationships it encouraged started at a young age and has been a constant passion in his life. “I grew up with parents, especially my father, who loved gardening. When I got married in 1970, my wife and I, wherever we lived, we had at least a small garden,” said Rudi about his early gardening, “When we moved to the Okanagan, we bought an orchard and developed a very large commercial garden. We grew garlic, berries, besides the fruit, and...

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By Tatiana Zamorano-Henriquez* Photos by Syed Mustafa* My background is Chilean-Canadian and having a Chilean family the values and morals that many Chileans have are profoundly rooted in family, social interactions and relationships. In the older generations of Chilean culture the collective and community was what bonded people together and was always cherished over individualist aspects of life and over the work life. An example of this in Chile that still occurs is the entire city shuts down for dinnertime. The workplaces close and people are given an hour to two hours to go home and sit down with family friends and coworkers and are encouraged to socialize over a meal. This system in Chile is a structure that promotes and inspires social interactions and forging social ties to fortify the sense of community, and although Chile’s structure has evolved and has been influenced by consumerist and individualist ideals from North America it still holds true to this system where social interactions and community is of central importance and as a result, sense of belonging and community has not dissipated in Chile and these principles can be found across the country. Thus, these ideals that made these interactions and community priority were always a part of my life. When I was young my days were filled with love, laughter, stories and endless conversations, these days were the happiest days of my life. Growing up I was encompassed by my family, we lived in East Vancouver on Venables Street in a vintage white house bordered with a light blue trim. I remember it as if it was only yesterday, walking up the blue steps of the house I opened the giant wooden door to my grandparents house, I remember my heart was always filled with happiness...

By Liam McLean* Photos by Syed Mustafa* Arriving in Vancouver from Hong Kong in 1980, Kevin Wong understands the difficulty of learning a new language in a foreign place. As we sit in the Kerrisdale Community Centre, his hand holding a book that will foreshadow the content of our conversation, he tells me about his first encounters with the English language in Hong Kong and in Vancouver. “When we were in Hong Kong we had English classes, but they are just basically grammar,” said Kevin, “Because every day we just spoke the Chinese [Cantonese]. We seldom used English in writing, speaking. So, basically when we came over here […] it was quite difficult to communicate.” After arriving in Canada, Kevin first attended Langara where his struggles with English continued, failing his first two attempts at a required first-year English course offered by the English as a Second Language (E.S.L) program. For Kevin, those early days of learning a new language were made more difficult since “everyday you have to encounter people [who speak English] and some people they talk really fast and don’t have the patience to say it again. Then you just have to guess what they’re talking about and half of the time you guess wrong.” With his sights set on attending Simon Fraser University, it was vital for him to understand English well enough to acquire the necessary transfer credits from Langara and to communicate in daily Vancouver life.          Kevin’s struggles diminished during his third attempt at the English program when he received the proper aid to accommodate his learning style. “The turning point was the teacher,” Kevin said, looking back at that third class, “She actually taught me the basics of grammar and she had the...

By Jamie Zabel* Walking into the Musical Voice Lab for the first time is an intimidating experience. As a newcomer to the program, this is certainly what I felt at first. However, the actual experience, while it may press your boundaries, is nothing but uplifting. Sitting around the circle of participants and hearing the chatter of people around you, you can tell that friends have been made and that trust has been built. This is inevitably the result of the Musical Voice Lab’s fantastically warm and bubbly facilitator, Jane Perrett. Her open and inviting presence, as well as her willingness to help with even the simplest questions about voice, breaks down any walls that people might have coming into the program.  The Musical Voice Lab is a Skill Share project run by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) that aims to help people discover and develop their voices. As of now, participants meet once a month to learn songs from a variety of genres as well as vocal techniques. Jane is a Dramatic Coloratura Soprano, meaning that she can hit the high notes with ease while also having a rich darkness to her tone. Performing has been a passion of Jane’s for most of her life, starting as early as high school where she would treat her classmates to performances of ABBA’s “I Dreamed a Dream,” and other popular songs. She would always be the first to volunteer whenever there was an opportunity to sing. While her first love is singing for people, Jane “always knew in the back of [her] mind that [she] wanted to teach.” When Keiko Honda, the president of VACS, approached her about running the Musical Voice Lab, she was hesitant but allowed the courage gained from her passion for...

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  By Susan Tsang Photo courtesy of Judith Lam  I caught a glimpse of being a woman nearly sixty years old as merely the beginning; the beginning of making her dreams come true. Judith Lam and Yoko Ogawa, who both looked much younger than their actual age, were noticeably two different styles of personality. Judith was an assertive speaker while Yoko had a gentle persona. However, both were smiling cordially, open to have a discourse about their upcoming collaboration focusing on transforming Japanese kimonos into modern fashion, while letting me to have a glimpse into their friendship and who they are. I was immediately intrigued when Judith and Yoko said they were excited to dive into the project without concerning whether or not their creations will be completed like they had envisioned. Judith explained, “It’s more that when we get older, the more we catch every moment,” so the two inventive women had no time to be tied down by clients or deadlines, worries or uncertainties; they simply act and live the most fulfilling way at the moment. Judith and Yoko are two long-time friends who met in the seventies in Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo. After graduation, they had begun different expeditions in the fashion industry, all the while, harboured the same passion. Judith established her design company in Hong Kong by catering to the Japanese market. Yoko worked in a team that specialized formal attires at an extensive Japanese company. The pair had sprouted from the same seed of dream and grown into separate branches, but their love for creating fashion was of the same root—both Judith and Yoko had loved drawings and sewings since young. Judith said, “I still vividly remember when I was young, like Grade three or four, I...

By Chloë Lai Photo courtesy of  Chloë Lai As I followed Keiko and the volunteers into the Beyond Music meeting space at the Musqueam Cultural Centre, I was greeted by the sound of lively chatter and haphazard violin-string plucking. Then one of the students spotted me and said, “Who’s that?” Good question.  It was something I’d spent the past two months (or the past 15 years, if I’m being completely honest) trying to find the answer to. I was fresh from a research trip to Borneo, where I had reached out to my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. She is Kadazandusun, an ethnic group indigenous to Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah. My father and I drove all over her hometown of Penampang interviewing as many elders as we could find. We learned about cultural taboos, rituals surrounding birth, marriage and death, and hilarious flirtation techniques that involved licking fruit sap from someone’s neck.  Several of the elders we spoke with were related to us by blood or marriage, others were introduced to us by friends. More than half of them had never seen or heard of us. Regardless of whether they knew us or not, our shared ancestral connection meant that we were welcomed with open hearts at every turn.  As someone who’s spent over a decade in a city known for being aloof, I was overwhelmed at this reception. I was determined to find ways to keep that spirit of connection alive once I came back to Vancouver.  The Beyond Music students told me that their favourite thing about the program so far was learning to play the violin. One of the students even held her violin case in her arms throughout the entire session. Since music is one...