carlyn yandle
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Time is ripe for Occupy Neighbourhood movement

4/24/2015

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PictureOne of a handful of Vancouver's 'country lanes' from a 2002 pilot projects. (Photo: Ben Nelms for National Post)
And yet.

And yet there is nothing like an untenable situation to spark a creative response. There is evidence of it in the spaces between, beyond, behind, or otherwise outside the scope of authority. You see it in neighbourhood back alleys and in the gaps between buildings all over the world: small, bold, personal gestures. It may start with a graffiti tag (I was here, The Man can stuff it) and evolve into jaw-dropping unauthorized artworks. It may start with that one condo-dweller with no outdoor space who drags a chair down to the street to do some sketching or practise guitar. Last year some folks down the block put out a table at the corner park and had a sit-down neighbours’ potluck dinner. Down another block is a Country Lane, one of just a handful of alleys transformed into a garden-like thoroughfare in a pilot project with the City back in 2002.

PictureDay after destruction: Giant doily on the bulldozed community gardens in Kitsilano (Carlyn Yandle photo)
And so it has come to pass. Where bloom-perfumed weeknight evenings in spring normally draw out elderly food-growers, young adults on after-class dog walks, tots trying out their new walking legs and commuter-runners with backpacks now there is barely a soul. “It’s so futile,” a neighbour said, hands on hips and gazing around at the remnant plant-bits fighting for traction in the bulldozer tracks. “This is just big male egos at work.”

My community, like all Vancouver communities increasingly hemmed in by one glassy, luxury edifice after another, is under threat of becoming no place in particular.

Living directly across the street from a swath of rubble, I think about the Field of Dreams line, “If you build it they will come.” Except in the case of the formerly thriving community gardens obliterated by CP Rail last month, it’s more, “If you destroy it, they will vamoose.”
PictureVancouver's downtown alleys are typically sketchy, soulless spaces. (Photo: Jonathan Hayward , Canadian Press)
These small acts are claims on our community. There’s nothing like an obliterated cherished social space to make us rethink this expectation that city planners or developers or Translink or the provincial government will make our corners of the world livable. That’s up to us. It requires a little courage and some questioning of authority. It may involve a little risk and the understanding that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. 

PictureLivable Laneways has taken on the west alley on Main Street north of Broadway, with various temporary installations and community events.
This is how I came to move a couple of wrought iron chairs from my deck to the acres of dead dirt across the street. I wanted to see if they would be confiscated or destroyed. Instead, they’re being used, to rest for a spell, to soak up the rays, to down a beer. It’s a small act but even two empty chairs are an invitation, a potential conversation.

I’ve been researching creative ways to carve out social spaces in the face of the residential-investment spree that’s taken over Vancouver. Even in the tightest spaces -- or especially in the tightest spaces – humanity can grow and thrive. From the thinnest walkway container gardens in Kyoto to a laneway festival in one of our city’s dumpster-blighted back alley, there is potential in occupying a lost space.

Don’t just say something; sit there.

PictureA laneway in Melbourne, Australia (Photo by Corbis via traveller.com.au)
  

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Packing it all in for the Toronto design fest

12/5/2014

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It's getting close to a decade since I packed it all in: my needles and wool, my sewing machine and fabrics, my mid-level-management career. There was more to explore.

I've been mixing it up with a wide range of materials (and makers) ever since but even I'm surprised to find that my latest tools of choice for bushwacking new routes of making are the ol' crochet hooks, knitting needles, rug hooks and embroidery needles.

The line on the paper has always been too limiting to me; I need to pick up that line, play with it in my hands, turn it into area, then volume. I remain entranced by the possibilities of connecting something created by a silkworm or an industrial manufacturing plant to a mathematical model or a wearable with uncomfortable connotations.

The beauty of fiber is in its physical and metaphorical ability to connect the Art side to the Design side (not to mention the science side), weaving the two together until it's clear that playing with ideas cannot be put into separate boxes.
Picture'Spore' (2011) serves as promo visual for the Vancouver design group.
Except if we're talking shipping boxes, for the Toronto Design Offsite (TO DO) Festival next month.

A few object-experiments from my ongoing Fuzzy Logic series will be packed in there, as part of the Vancouver group of makers, selected by the Dear Human creative studio.

It's all part of the ‘Outside the Box’ exhibits featuring works from three selected Canadian cities — Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver — and five from the U.S.: New York, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.

It's a fine way to mine local design ideas and visions through an unexpected selection of objects that are shared in various locations via specific-sized shipping boxes.

The Vancouver contribution includes nine individuals and teams who live, design and make in the greater Vancouver area. The connecting thread is a pursuit of a design practice through material exploration, according to Dear Human. "Whether through common applications of unusual materials or transcending common materials through unusual applications, exploration is evident in each of the included objects." 

Rounding out the Vancouver Outside the Box contingent are: Cathy Terepocki, Dahlhaus, Dina Gonzalez Mascaro, Hinterland Designs, Laura McKibbon, Rachael Ashe, and Studio Bup.

PicturePlaying with fiber optics (Photo by Carlyn Yandle)
Vancouver Outside the Box will take over the windows at 1082 Queen Street West, Toronto, from January 19-25, 2015.

TO DO is an annual city-wide not-for-profit week-long festival that celebrates and showcases the nation's design scene, providing exposure and cross-pollination of ideas and techniques. There are too many exhibits, installations, talks, parties and films to list here, so check out the full (and growing) schedule here as well as the fun promo video.

PictureDetail of Fiber Optics (Photo by Carlyn Yandle)




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Art walk a reason to browse South Granville again

6/20/2014

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PictureThe neighbourhood as it was when I lived there.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with South Granville, the shopping strip between 6th and 16th Avenues.

This was the neighbourhood of my first apartment, a $350-per-month studio in the old Greenwood Lodge, in the '80s. It was also the first-apartment area of family members reaching back to the 1950s. This is where my boyfriend brought home deli from Szasz's, cornish pasties from the butcher and cinnamon buns from the bakery next to that.

My last job as newspaper editor was in the former Pitman secretarial school, in the historic Dick Building at Broadway and Granville. I moved into my office when the only trace of the old Aristocratic restaurant on the opposite corner was the refurbished neon sign in the newly built Chapters.

For the next five years I had a front row seat for the neighbourhood transition from the clutter of green grocers and diners to high-end designer clothing and objet shops. During my last months at the newspaper, the strip started to reek of exclusivity and it became quite the challenge to find a place to buy a banana or a pair of socks.  Today it is identified as a food desert and the outgoing point of exodus for several art galleries, due to high rents and lack of space.

Despite the bad rap, there are some good upscale galleries that make South Granville a reason to browse, especially this Saturday (June 21, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.) during the 3rd annual Art Walk (map). The 18 galleries and antique dealers that form what the retailer-community association has dubbed Gallery Row is putting out the coffee and cookies, hosting artist talks and demos and generally readying themselves for a spike in walk-in traffic. It's a smart move that is no doubt in reaction to the loss of key galleries Winsor, Monte Clark, and Equinox to 'The Flats.'

If you've ever wanted to see inside those slightly intimidating spaces, this is the day.






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cultural community under threat in sparkling city

5/2/2014

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My daily work corner is one-third of a shared 800-square-foot studio of a mouldering building in the shadow of numerous condo-tower cranes in Mount Pleasant, with a combined rent of more than $1,000 per month. In the four years that I've managed to hold onto this little space I've watched Development Permit Application signs go up on one decrepit building after another. The signs go up, then all the resident independent visual artists, industrial designers, musicians, film industry workers, writers and performers get packing.

But where to go is a serious problem. A healthy city has a rich culture but the places to actually do that hard work are rare or too costly to consider in this town. Everyone knows someone who has given up trying and moved to Toronto. It's getting to the point where some artist friends have decided to remain in Vancouver — at least for the moment — because they just can't abandon the struggling cultural community.

It's an odd feeling, working in adverse conditions to ensure a vibrant cultural life in the milieu of the city's glassy wealth. Surely some of those speculative development dollars could actually help stem the tide that threatens to replace every last independent bookstore, gallery cafe and theatre into one long avenue of Shoppers Drug Marts, bank branches and Starbucks.

This is why, despite a general wariness about any artisan-party-backed events,  I and a couple of friends hit the Fox theatre last Thursday for a Vision Vancouver-backed community forum  on protecting the city's cultural spaces. When you want to be part of the conversation on this critical topic you go where there are ears. 

Everyone from young street performers to retired folks bent on protecting threatened venues packed the revamped former porno theatre last Thursday evening — the perfect venue for showcasing what is possible with a council that is increasingly promoting the value of city culture of all kinds.

The entrepreneur behind the Fox, Ernesto Gomez (Waldorf, Nuba, etc.) was there on stage as part of a panel led by city councillor Heather Deal that included fellow councillor Geoff Meggs; Kate Armstrong, director of Emily Carr University's Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre;  and Esther Rausenberg, head of the Eastside Culture Crawl. The vibe was one of simmering frustration but there was also warmth generated by the obvious show that we are all in this together. 
Picture
From left: Coun. Geoff Meggs, Kate Armstrong, Ernesto Gomez, Esther Rausenberg, Coun. Heather Deal. (Carlyn Yandle photo)
Deal dealt her summation the next day, based on notes she was taking during the roving-mike portion of the evening:
"Development needs to deliver more for local culture. Arts and culture needs to be treated as a public good. That we need zoning to enable independent businesses and cultural groups to succeed, not push them out. And that it's not just about creating studio space, it's the need for rehearsal and production space too."

But things are getting better, as many noted at the forum. The relatively new food truck program and more reasonable liquor licensing laws are both driving audiences and sales at local festivals and venues;  car-free events like the city's biggest free music and art fest, Khatsalano and Car Free Day on the Drive have turned radical notions into much-loved draws.
PictureMiniature portraits by artists of the Phantoms in the Front Yard Collective
And the squeeze on work and show space has resulted in some fresh, unconventional art shows in opportunistic spaces, like shipping containers or urban alleys. Last Friday it was a pop-up show, Everyone I've Never Known, in three units of the retro Burrard hotel. Only in one of the most expensive cities in the world will you find serious collectors crowding into tiny hotel rooms to snap up the miniature graphite and pencil portraits — proof that artists will continue to create, even if at a scale that doesn't demand studio space.



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Granville Island needs an injection of innovation

3/7/2014

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PicturePhoto of ECUAD's South Building by Stephen Hui/Georgia Straight
When finally — yet suddenly — I graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, I was done, done, done, exhausted after four intense years of input. Now I needed space for four more years of output, to practice and to develop a practice.

But finding a suitable work space in this pricey city is no easy task. Self-(un)employed artists are no match for the slick technology firms and ad agencies that will pay top dollar to set up their cool premises in the port-town-era brick buildings. So we make do, sharing whatever space we can get while keeping an ear open for rumours of where we might be able to jump when the Permit Application billboard springs up in front of our crumbling building.

PictureIntriguing shows at the Charles H. Scott Gallery include the current Hyperflat.
Another art school in another city might play a part in providing studio rental opportunities for its new grads, encouraging a healthy cross-pollination of creative post-school work in industrial design, animation, sculpture, painting, media arts and curatorial services. But Emily Carr University is bursting at the seams and is focused on its campaign to move east to Great Northern Way. It's a grand vision, but what will become of the Granville Island community when the two-building campus vacates?  What of the dependable Opus Art Supplies, which depends heavily on the student customer base next door, as well as the other material suppliers on the Island? And the George H. Scott Gallery?

Vancouver Sun reporter Daphne Bramham took on the topic this week. In her story, one of the original designers of Granville Island, architect Norm Hotson, said replacing the school with another educational institution would help modernize the zone. Or it could be re-energized as "an incubator space” for "innovators", he said, or developed into a cultural hub that might include galleries, artist studios, residencies. And he pointed to Paris’s Cité Internationale des Arts as an example. 

PictureToronto's Distillery District was revamped into a cultural hub. (Photo from Artscape website)
It's this kind of forward thinking that could stop the downtown core and Westside from slipping into a blandly privileged area with all the cultural texture of glassy high-end condos.

Granville Island needs a vibrant injection of new ideas and opportunities and Vancouver desperately needs a cultural hub, a multifunctional space with rental studios and residencies for everyone from painters to industrial designers, techies to musicians, performers to writers.

Yes, it's a balancing act. Nobody wants the Island to shut as tight as a tomb at night but the neighbours won't take kindly to the place being mobbed by booze-fueled night-crawlers. Artists and students work all hours, often after a day of slinging Italian coffees or serving Public Market customers. As students we purchase our supplies on the island, we depend on the visitors for our shows and showings. Our work ensures Granville Island is a tourist draw, not a tourist trap, that it is committed to Artisan over Ye Olde, authenticity over Disney.

It may sound like a pipe dream, but Granville Island was part of the inspiration that led the not-for-profit Artscape in Toronto to turn a collection of industrial buildings into a major cultural hub and tourist draw, in a remarkably short time. (See YouTube interview with Tim Jones, president and CEO of CityScape below.) 

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