July 03, 2003
Community Art and Community Gardens
Mitigating the news about the Olympics today was a piece of local news - our community art project has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the Vancouver Foundation.
We live in the West End of Vancouver; one of the most densely populated communities in the western world. Despite its density, the West End is very liveable, and has a very diverse population, with a range of incomes, ages, ethnic groups, and a large gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered population. It's a vibrant neighbourhood and because it's accessible to the beaches, to Stanley Park, and to downtown, you don't need a car to live here.
For the past two years we've been involved with the new Mole Hill Community Garden. The garden was created one cool rainy day last January in a laneway in the middle of the Mole Hill community housing project. This project consists of several turn-of-the-century heritage houses which have been renovated and restored as community housing. For a while it looked like the houses would be destroyed and high-rises built in their place (as happened in much of the West End), but a coalition of community acivitists, housing activists, heritage groups and others lobbied for their preservation.
As part of the Mole Hill project, part of the laneway between the houses was to be turned into a community garden. We helped build that garden last year; converting parking spaces into garden plots (see the photos above - there are more on the West End Residents Association website - better yet, pay a visit if you're in the Vancouver area) and this year the individual plots and the communal plots are lush with greenery.
Now we want to build on our past achievements and create a piece of community art that will tie together the housing project, the garden and the traffic calming that is slated to happen in the laneway (which badly needs it - the lane is used as a shortcut by far too many motor vehicles. As home to a daycare, and as the backyard of the Mole Hill residents and the site of the community gardens, this traffic is very inappropriate.) We applied for, and received, a grant from the City of Vancouver, and have now received a grant from the Vancouver Foundation.
Over the next month we will choose an artist and begin consultations with the Mole Hill and West End community to decide what would be appropriate as an art piece for this project.