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 JIYOON HA   Food waste is a mounting, $31 billion problem in Canada, and a problem that’s happening at every level: grocery stores, restaurants, farms, and most notably, households. Because it’s an issue so widespread across the nation, but happening in the unseen pockets of the food industry, it’s often glossed over as an issue too big to tackle by the government.   On an individual scale, this pressing issue smothers us with a feeling of simultaneous guilt and helplessness. Sure, we should work towards reducing our own food waste — after all, homes contribute to 50% of food waste — but with our increasingly fast-paced lifestyles, it’s difficult to exact the science of reducing our own food waste through frequent shopping for smaller quantities. Even if we can reserve a sliver of our daily lives for the supermarket to take on the zero-waste lifestyle, large figures, like $31 billion or 1.5 billion of overall food waste in Canada, can make it feel like our own individual dedication to saving the environment isn’t even making a dent of a dent. Photo courtesy of Food Stash Foundation   One early Friday morning, I met with David Schein, the founder of Food Stash Foundation. Food Stash has a truly remarkable story: what began as a one person project, consisting of David and his trusty bicycle — and eventually, a Toyota Camry, has evolved into a full-fledged organization with committed volunteers, twenty-six food rescue organizations, over forty (and counting) food suppliers, and has recently achieved charity status — all over the course of ten months. According to their website, Food Stash has a “two-fold mission”: to “rescue food from producers and suppliers that would have been destined for the landfill, and to deliver edible food items...

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...

Photo from news.ok.ubc.ca ARTICLE BY ADELE MCCANN Creativity is an illusive and mysterious thing. It is difficult to pinpoint where a great idea comes from and the process by which it comes into being. I had the pleasure of a conversation with UBC Okanagan Professor Liane Gabora to discuss her theory of creativity and her exploration into this area. She stated that creativity is best known as the process that fuels the evolution of culture. We might consider that a flower could inspire a song, which in turn might inspire a painting, which then goes on to inspire the invention of a certain kind of paintbrush, and so on. Creativity is a constantly evolving and adaptive thing that is constantly driving humanity’s evolution and adaptation to the world. However, Liane’s Honing Theory posits that it is not the creative outputs of a painting or a song that comprise this evolutionary process, but rather our own worldviews that give rise to creative processes. It is our perspectives that are evolving and regenerating and art is a visible manifestation of this underlying internal change. There are two components of the process by which these worldviews evolve: communal exchange and self-organisation. Communal exchange involves interaction with other elements of your world – very often people. You assimilate these interactions and that affects your worldview – your internal web of understandings about the world and your place in it, the driving force behind your creative output. Consider you might see a monkey eating a banana at the zoo and are inspired to create a cartoon about monkeys. You cannot create anything new for the world until you have interacted with what is already there. It is in this way that we can evolve a creative idea by talking...

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Dear Readers, The Kerrisdale Sakura Festival 2017 was a huge success with the sunny weather and the great turn-out. More importantly, we were so blessed to have such a wonderful community of volunteers that made this year’s Sakura event all possible, we can’t thank you enough!  This includes all of YOU, the enthusiastic participants, supporters, and collaborators who made the event so engaging and inclusive. We certainly made new community connections through sharing the moment.   Speaking of aha moment, we all learned during the Sakura Walking Tour with Robin Clark, that cherry trees release oxygen through stem pores called lenticels, whose function is equivalent to that of stomata, or breathing cells, found on leaves. Who knew! The DOUBLE thank-you to cherry trees for what they do! Next time when you go near cherry trees, look carefully for lenticels which can be easily seen on the trunks, and then BREATHE!  The community engagement committee is gearing up for the next big event, Vancouver Regional Heritage Fair, scheduled on Saturday, May 20th. Please stay tuned! Happy Spring! Keiko Honda, Editor-in-Chief, Chair of Community Engagement...

 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...

With the skillful and passionate teaching of Doug Masuhara, the Tetsu Taiko sensei (master), twenty-plus participants, an absolute beginner’s group, learned the drumming basics. They had become ONE after drumming away on garbage can drums for about one hour! It was so touching to watch and listen the transformation.   Here are what participants said about the workshop: He first showed how to play the drums and then he had ALL of us play it; An amazing workshop! We learned the Japanese polite way We learned the world and words of the Taiko Drumming together was really fun The introduction, explanation, and practice; Very well done! It was excellent; I want my son to learn more! The Kerrisdale Sakura Festival was planned and organized by the Community Engagement Committee of the Kerrisdale Community Centre Society. The Japanese drumming workshop was our first attempt to enthral you through the powerful sound of the Taiko (Japanese drums).  It seems that the participants were left with an unforgettable, artistic and cultural experience. Photo credit: Syed Mustafa  ...

By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky Photo courtesy of Brian Feldbloom Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society If you’re an animal-lover, this one’s for you. Sitting down and talking to Brian about his recent venture into the pet food industry, I didn’t really know what to expect. Of course our conversation invariably strayed to our pets, nonetheless the real story lies in-between these small pockets of pet-talk. ‘Naturally Urban Pet Food Delivery’ provides free delivery of pet food all throughout Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and Burnaby. It’s simple: pet-owners order their food on the Naturally Urban website and its delivered right to your door. Did I mention it’s free? I was fascinated to know what prompted Brian to start this business: “The reason I started was, I had my doggy, and we switched her over to raw food. I was a flight executive at Flight Centre and I used to have to work late and then I would have to run home, get my car, and drive out to the pet store before it closed,” Brian told me, “And I thought, this is so annoying, its such a stress and I thought: ‘There has to be a better way!’” And so, Naturally Urban was born, with Brian looking to service a need, one undoubtedly shared by many pet owners throughout Metro Vancouver and beyond. “The two markets right now that we are doing well with are seniors and people with disabilities and physical challenges. We love helping them,” Brian shares with me, but emphasizes that the service is available for anybody to use. Convenience is one Naturally Urban’s main functions. Brian cites his colleague Kris McRonney as an “integral” part of his business. “I mean, my business associate Kris has been with me from...