Produced by Vancouver Moving Theatre with Carnegie Community Centre and a number of community partners, the 20th Annual Heart of the City Festival had over 100 projects and events taking place in and around Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood from October 25th to November 5th, 2023. The events were curated with a mandate to promote and facilitate artists, cultural traditions, the people’s stories and grassroots arts-based activism in the community. With a wide variety of events such as live concerts, art installations, theater, stand-up comedy, talks, workshops and movie screenings, the festival celebrated diverse artistic voices in the under-resourced neighborhood.
We here at Vancouver Arts Review attended a few events. The scale of the festival was modest, but the warmth and hospitality extended to the artists and attendees indicated the dedication of the festival team to make a positive difference via art. Most of the events were free with a special focus on accessibility for the disabled. Events at the Carnegie Community Centre also provided food and beverages to festival attendees. The issues of over-policing, forced displacement (colloquially known as “street sweeps”) and toxic opioid epidemic have devastated the neighborhood in the last few decades. It was incredibly humbling to witness the strength and spiritedness of the community members who participated in the festival.
Ironworks IV: The Homeless Project
Composer and guitarist Tony Wilson is intimately familiar with the homelessness crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, having experienced the struggle first hand. This musical project, however, centers his daughter’s experience with homelessness, addiction and the arduous road to her recovery and reintegration into mainstream society.
“The Homeless Project” features narration (Micheal McNamara), multimedia projections (Zsofin Sheehy) and sign language interpretation (Jessica Heuchert), with a central focus on the jazz ensemble – JP Carter on trumpet, Josh Zubot on violin, Patsy Klein’s vocals, Russel Sholberg on bass, Kenten Loewen on drums, Cole Schmidt on guitar and Tony Wilson on electric guitar. The pieces vary in tone and intensity – taking the audiences on a journey that mirrors a sense of longing and uncertainty, portraying the chaotic depths of the homeless experience. The visuals filmed by Micheal Mckinlay (who is also Wilson’s son-in-law) enhance the emotional tenor of the band’s musical renderings.
The performance at Carnegie Hall was free, with generous helpings of snacks and beverages provided to all attendees. At the end of the performance, Tony Wilson expressed a tearful gratitude for being able to perform the project at this venue – given the relevance of the subject and the need to not only represent the community’s ongoing struggles but also celebrate the voices of the marginalized residents of the community.
Tony Wilson’s eclectic musical repertoire is surpassed only by his talent of transfiguring traumatic experiences into cathartic art. “The Homeless Project” continues the tradition of his previous ensembles – “A Day’s Life” and “Looking Back” which told self-reflective tales of Wilson’s experiences with addiction and childhood abuse in so-called Canada’s colonial institutions. With the powerful addition of his daughter’s personal story, “The Homeless Project” turns into a touching memento to the often unspoken realities of intergenerational trauma. It is hard to understate the power of projects such as these which center self-awareness, resilience and hopefulness of survivors without obscuring the depths of suffering brought about by systemic neglect.
Ironworks IV: Beatings are in the Body
“Beatings are in the Body” is an intriguing passion project by composers Róisín Adams (voice and electronics), Peggy Lee (cello) and Erika Angell (keyboards). As the name suggests, the project’s experimental music compositions seek to unlock some deeply felt neural memories and release them via sonic vibrations. Róisín weaves magic with her voice and electronic panel – the sound effects range from haunting to whimsical. The vocals are not always articulate, much like most of our deep-set traumas. Some tracks, however, feature poetic verses by contemporary poet Meaghan McAneely. Peggy Lee’s masterful caressing of the cello coaxes out an astounding sonic bandwidth from the spine of the instrument. Erika Angell contributes deftly with vocals and keyboards, moving a classical piano to an electric keyboard from time to time. Overall, “Beatings are in the Body” becomes a fitting addition to the Heart of the City festival circuit.
Two Amigos Walking Tour
On a crisp and windy Sunday morning, amigos Bob Sung and John Atkin greeted a bunch of us eager tourists outside Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, located at the intersection of Carall and Keefer. What followed was a delightful guided walk with Sung and Atkin dishing out lively anecdotes, historic facts and tasty samplers from local eateries in Vancouver’s Chinatown District.
Atkin educated us about the history of migration of laborers from China into this neighborhood, the notoriously racist policies that stifled the neighborhood’s growth and funny tales of local political rivalries influenced by revolutionary currents which transformed 20th Century China. He also helped us visualize how the neighborhood looked back then – a noisy industrial hub full of railroads, mossy bogs, residential buildings and even fancy restaurants built to attract visitors from other parts of town. Sung, meanwhile, shared how his personal history with the neighborhood went back three generations. He graciously enlightened us about the cultural practices of the community’s past and present inhabitants. Along the walk, everyone was treated to apple tarts, barbeque pork and herbal medicines – a delectable curation of Chinatown’s cultural heritage. The tour signifies the nascent attempts at revitalizing the neighborhood after decades of administrative neglect and gentrification. There is no denying that Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside are indeed the Heart of Vancouver City.
Funny Side Up: Stand-up for Mental Health
Since 2004, Stand-up for Mental Health (SMH) has been training those who struggle with mental health issues in the fine art of stand-up comedy as a way to build confidence and fight public stigma. Founded by David Granirer, the non-profit has boldly championed a community of stand-up comics who offer hilarious and often insightful perspectives that subvert narrow-minded stereotypes of their lived experiences.
A few members of the ongoing SMH cohort as well as a couple of alumni graced the Heart of the City Festival with a special stand-up show. The comics regaled the audience with anecdotes related to their mental health diagnoses and their precarious life choices, leaving everyone in splits of raucous laughter. It was an absolute delight to witness the comics exercise agency over their narratives as they cleverly exposed how society tends to perpetuate biases that worsen the spirals. It was powerful to see how comedy can be a viable tool to spotlight the sobering reality of local residents who struggle with varying degrees of mental illness as a result of systemic inequities and toxic drug crises.
We Live Here II
At the intersection of Columbia and Keefer lies a corner parking lot, beside which is a building with a brick wall. Bold LED lights on the top right corner of the facade read – “let’s heal the divide”. After sunset, this part of Yaletown becomes gloomy and foreboding, the LED lights ring hollow, accentuating the dystopian mood.
For two evenings in early November 2023, this brick wall came to life with a multimedia art installation that depicted graffiti art-making by local street artists. Projected in 20 minute loops, the hyperlapse videos captured local street favorites at work as they improvised images, cartoons and text messages with colorful spray paints. The final result brimmed with defiance against authority – spotlighting the crisis of murders/disappearances of Indigenous folks and the struggles of unhoused people who face undue police violence. Each of those artworks were likely imprinted on the public walls of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Yaletown and Gastown before they were eventually removed for violating city bylaws.
The makers of this art installation have ingeniously captured the artists in their flow and memorialized their art with due credit. By adding impactful hip-hop songs and gangster rap as background music, this projection pays homage to the artistic voices of those on the streets who face the heaviest hands of the law enforcement. The ephemeral nature of this art installation – it was up for a total of 4 hours spanning two nights – symbolizes the reality of street art and graffiti artists who twinkle their way around various walls in the city, often disappearing into the nothingness of the city’s dark forces.
– Annapoorna Shruthi