Community Arts Council of Vancouver

CACV Board Member

Dara Culhane was elected to the board in November, 2010. She works in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. Here’s is Dara’s message:

Thank you for inviting me to stand for nomination to your Board of Directors.  I am very interested in the work you are doing, and the plans you are developing for the future, and I would like to contribute what I can.  I have lived in Strathcona for varying periods of time since 1970, raised a family here, and now have grandchildren who go to Strathcona Elementary School. My association with the Downtown Eastside community dates back to 1970 as well when I worked on an Opportunities for Youth project that evolved over the years into what is now the Lookout Society! During the 1980s I served on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, and facilitated a film project entitled “An Apple A Day” about women’s health needs.  My volunteer community involvement in recent years has been as member of the co-ordinating committee for the Downtown Eastside Community Play, and most recently (since 2008) as a member of the Board of Directors of Vancouver Moving Theatre, and a supporter of the Carnegie Action Committee. I am an anthropologist by profession, and since joining the faculty of SFU in 1994 I have been involved in various community-based, participatory research projects in the DTES, beginning with “Health & Home”, a collaborative partnership with the DEWC and Bridge Housing focused on relationships between health and housing for low income women.  In Plain Sight, a collection of women’s life stories grew out of that project and was published by Talonbooks in 2005. A significant aspect of my professional work has been, and continues to be, training university students and community-based researchers together in fieldwork and arts-based methods.  I have a life long interest in theatre that I have integrated into my teaching and research. In collaborations with Vancouver Native Health/Positive Outlook Program, I have coordinated two major “ethnographic performance” projects, one in 2005-2006 called “People Like You” that involved 12 women diagnosed HIV+ and living in DTES and Central Surrey, and a second, “Stories & Plays”, in 2007 that involved 9 members of VNHS/POP in producing an exhibit, feast and live performance event. If elected, I would hope my experience and commitments could support grassroots community arts initiatives in various ways.