As Host City, the City of Vancouver is planning exciting hands-on Study Tours as part of the Summit agenda.
Here’s a peek at their plans:
Making Space for Arts and Culture Tour #1: Downtown South
In this 2km walking tour, you will visit several cultural spaces including two new cultural hubs: 825 Studios and the Howe Street Studios. Cultural Spaces staff will share how the City of Vancouver secures spaces through development processes and non-profit arts operators will share how they run, maintain, and renovate City-owned facilities. City staff are excited to share common challenges and successes as they work together to advance our Making Space for Arts and Culture plan.
Making Space for Arts and Culture Tour #2: Lower Mount Pleasant
A bus will take you to our starting place for a 2km (mostly downhill) walking tour to artist live or work spaces in and around lower Mount Pleasant. Tour stops will include spaces that have heritage designations (The Western Front), that are under development (123 East 6th Ave), and that are temporary (City Centre Artist Lodge). Cultural Spaces staff and community members will share the common goals of addressing a community-driven report called A City Without Art? No Net Loss, Plus!
Vancouver’s Founding Neighbourhoods: A Walking Tour
A bus will take you to our starting point in Vancouver’s historic heart of the city: the Downtown Eastside. You’ll be led by City Staff and experienced community guides through Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods: Strathcona, Hogan’s Alley, Chinatown, and Powell Street. After this two-hour walking tour, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the historical and contemporary contributions of urban Indigenous people and diverse cultural communities that shape the heart of Vancouver.
Stanley Park Tour: A Land-based Tour
A bus will take you to meet host, artist and ethno-botanist T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Sto:lo, Hawaiian, Swiss) who is the current artist in a Vancouver Park Board cultural residency supporting a community member from the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), or səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Wyss will have you eating out of their hand, literally, on a 2.5-hour walk and talk about cultural practice on the land in a part of their unceded territory that has recently become known as Stanley Park.
North Vancouver: Waterfront Tour
In this tour, you’ll take a 12-minute Seabus trip across Burrard Inlet to our visit CoV’s neighbours on Vancouver’s North Shore. There, City Planning and Arts & Cultural Staff will share the experience of transforming an under-utilized industrial waterfront into a bustling public space at The Shipyards. Afterwards, you’ll choose from a public art walk or a visit to one of two new purpose-built, anchor cultural spaces in the redeveloped Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood: The Polygon Gallery, or the Museum of North Vancouver (MONOVA).
Public Art Tour #1: Bus Tour of Vancouver’s Iconic Public Artworks
In this three-hour bus tour—with drive-by and hop on and off stops—you will visit iconic pieces in the City’s public art collection. Along the way, you will get a behind-the-scenes look at issues related to the maintenance, installation, public reception, local politics, and process to decolonize the public art landscape in the City. The tour will end with a reception at the public art warehouse that includes a talk on the conservation of the Mungo Martin Centennial Totem Pole and the recently-toppled statue of Len Deighton, aka Gassy Jack.
Public Art Tour #2: Rolling Through Art: A Public Art Bike Tour
In this 10km guided bike tour, you will pedal along Vancouver’s separated bike lanes and seawall to destinations around Vancouver’s West End to visit many public artworks that were commissioned by the City’s private sector and civic programs. You’ll visit the brand-new, secondary street signage for Komagata Maru Place, along with the iconic 1986 Inukshuk, and learn about the City’s developing framework for Commemoration and placemaking to better reflect the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations’ visibility on their own unceded lands.
Public Art Tour #3: Eric’s Trip: A Downtown Walking Tour
In this 2.5-hour walking tour, guided by Vancouver’s Head of Public Art, you will visit over 20 significant public artworks in the City’s downtown core. Highlights include the Cultural Precinct around the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch and a visit to Offsite, an outdoor exhibition space of temporary artworks curated by the Vancouver Art Gallery in partnership with the City of Vancouver Public Art Program.
Study Tour Details Subject to Change. More tours still to come!
