Community

As we grow our operations and space, we are becoming an significant cultural hub for the DTES, providing a framework for artists, residents and community groups to work together, while exploring new cross-cultural and hybrid art forms. Respecting the community’s diverse existing populations as well as new residents, the programming partners will develop strategies to engage participants as producers rather than consumers of new technology and the arts; creating new forms of collective learning and expression, resources and platforms for self-representation.

Given the diverse programming and audiences of the Society’s member groups who will occupy the new space, target user groups are diverse and build upon these organizations’ already established patrons. They include:

• Residents of the DTES & Vancouver – those with an interest to use the Print & Digital Publishing Centre (there is currently no access to such services anywhere else in the neighbourhood); the interdisciplinary Gallery; the Web Café; or the range of educational workshops/programs offered by tenant groups.
• Youth & Children – all the groups involved in the Centre have worked with youth and children (ICTV), street involved youth, and First Nations youth (Redwire, IMAG). Obvious connections can also be made with the new Woodwards childcare centre.
• Emerging & Established Media Artists – with production, editing, performance and exhibition opportunities all within a single venue, there are significant opportunities for expression and collaboration for Vancouver media artists. For example, young artists from the Woodward’s SFU campus working on collaborative projects with emerging/established artists from the community in an environment of peer learning (younger artists being mentored by older artists, more established women artists mentoring emerging women artists, aboriginal artist mentorships etc.).
• Emerging & Established Writers/Poets – through the services, programming and library resources offered by the Kootenay School of Writing.
• Marginalized residents facing multiple barriers – W2 staff have extensive experience working with our neighbours including DTES residents facing mental illness, addictions and poverty. W2 also collaborates with participating organisations (ie: VANDU) with extensive experience with advancing the interests of marginalized residents.

The objective for the Centre is the delivery of multiple and concurrent programming that meets the schedules of the individual partners while at the same time addressing the overall/collective programming that will be developed in the space. Participants will be able to access the Centre for a wide range of activities through the day, evening and weekends, depending on the programming. With eight tenant organizations, and dozens of combined staff persons, we hope to be able a flexible and accessible space to our public.

Jobs + Training

The Centre will house our partner community organizations, which includes some of their existing staff members (current estimate 25 full and part-time positions). With the planned new community programming to be developed for the Centre, we anticipate that new employment opportunities will be created as the space grows. In addition, regular public programming will employ dozens of professional artists and technicians in their delivery. The key growth areas for employment will be the Centre’s DTES-oriented apprenticeship program.

Most of our participating organizations currently have successful training and access and participation programs. Apprenticeship programs involve rigorous curriculum delivery, in exchange for access to services, involving upto 200 registered apprentices (per year) trained for the TV studio and other services. Half of the apprentices will be DTES residents.

We anticipate that these training programs will easily expand as our partners integrate and streamline their training levels with one another – Video Coop training programs will become one public access service to provide graduated and total media training at different levels (i.e. street-level entry through workshops, then moving into professional artist-in-residencies programs, and then into television studio training).

The Centre will also be seeking partnerships within the cultural industries to provide a legacy for our apprenticeship and training program participants. There is a growing enthusiasm amongst the private sector for a new type of apprenticeship, tailor-made for the creative and cultural sector. The Centre’s apprenticeship program has the potential to help secure the cultural industries’ prominence in the DTES: a quality-assured, ready supply of skilled, creative, enthusiastic and diverse talent.

The Centre’s cultural services and programming will also feature volunteers and participants from the 7,000 members of the Centre's core organizations; an additional 12,000 members of partnering organizations; S.F.U. students; other building tenants and their communities; as well as City of Vancouver residents and businesses, in general. By accessing the many programs and services the Centre will offer, these thousands of patrons will have the opportunity to develop new skills and expertise to augment their current job skills, or help to launch new careers. Through our unique Atrium-front locale, we can offer street-level contact with marginalized residents looking for personal and career growth.
Inspired by Woodward’s Co-Design Workshops in May 2003

The Centre proposal has been developed with a careful consideration of the needs and priorities identified by residents through the City’s community consultation process. The Centre can proudly state it meets and even exceeds many objectives established by DTES residents during the Woodward’s community consultations. And subsequent to those consultations which many of us participated in, we have been involved with the development of the DTES cultural sector, through the DTES Community Arts Network (CAN). With these in mind, the Centre has identified three primary goals in the development of its programming priorities:

• To provide opportunities for residents of the Downtown Eastside to experience the arts as audience, for personal growth and expression, as aspiring and practicing artists, and for personal and collective voice for advocacy on issues affecting the community.
• To provide an indigenous means for locally-led sustainable economic and social renewal in collaboration with local resident, community and business organizations.
• To build bridges with people and organizations within and beyond the Downtown Eastside that strengthens understanding and appreciation for the people of this community and their accomplishments.

Given its multi-tenant structure, and the wide range of programming to be offered, the Centre will address a wide variety of the ideas and priorities identified by the community in the 2003-05 consultations (touching on every major category), including:

Health

• Emphasize complementary and alternative treatment and holistic services - including Aboriginal healing traditions;
• Health as both physical and spiritual well being;
• A centre for art and healing.

Recreation

• Interchangeable Performance, Cultural & Recreational Spaces;
• Performance centre venue is ideal space for movement and dance, capoeira, and martial arts.

Cultural

• Cover a wide range of activities;
• Art galleries, theatres and artist work studios;
• Cultural performance space in the building be multi-functional, allowing for a stage/amphitheatre area to be used for shows, presentations, plays and concerts;
• The vision of Woodward's was one that was spiritual and creative;
• Need to retain and promote the history of the building and the surrounding area and communities.

Commercial and Retail

• A model of public market style shops and services, including cafes and restaurants;
• Not only meet the needs of local residents but also attract shoppers and tourists;
• Generate economic activity in the neighbourhood.

Employment

• Employment services emphasizing skills retaining; access skill up-grading services for employment;
• Opportunity to develop their own small businesses.

Social

• Meeting rooms and space available for public use, and space for non-profit offices;
• A hub or connector of other services in the local area;
• A general resource centre;
• Access to telephones and computers for community residents;
• A place that provides information and library services on a variety of issues;
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General Design/Linkages

• A central atrium or courtyard that is accessible to the public;
• Pedestrian friendly with emphasis on plants, light;
• W2 Cafe to function as both beacon and public attraction at plaza level;
• Centre members are experienced in delivering small and large festivals and will produce a roster of ongoing and annual events to maximize integration of interior spaces and plaza.

Community Cultural Development

The Downtown Eastside is the historic heart of our city. The measure of Vancouver as an inclusive city will be determined in large part by how the current residents of the Downtown Eastside are supported in working together for renewal of a community that they value, and which is valued by Vancouver as a whole. At present the Downtown Eastside is challenged by gentrification, the mass sale of illegal drugs, and poverty. Yet it has a history of overcoming previous challenges that would intimidate many other communities.

W2 Community Media Arts Society believes that that the arts are a powerful, indigenous resource in the Downtown Eastside, a highly accessible means for many who have limited material resources to utilize and expand their knowledge, skills and talents for community development. The Centre’s purpose is to contribute through the arts to the social, cultural and economic renewal of the Downtown Eastside as a healthy and culturally rich community where people from predominately low incomes and from diverse life styles, abilities and financial means feel at home.

The Centre proposal is more than simply the sum of its parts, and can proudly demonstrate the benefits of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary arts practice. New genres and hybrid forms of art can be explored and produced, while the presentation venues and satellite distribution capacity guarantee audiences. With the perfect architect-designed cinema and festivals layout of the adjacent public plaza, proximity to SFU facilities, performance centre, and TV studio, international and national programming can maximize the revitalized Woodward's site for all Vancouver communities, and connect our residents to communities from around the world.