COMMUNITY
ARTS
COUNCIL OF
VANCOUVER

Community Arts Council of Vancouver is a partner with the Vancouver Park Board and Stanley Park Ecology Society in the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project.

We are involved with and helped start the Means of Production Artists Community Garden in the Mount Pleasant area of Vancouver.

You can sign up for our e-newsletter and select Environmental Art as an option if you want to hear more about projects we’re involved with.

Stanley Park Environmental Art Project is a collaboration between artists, ecologists, park staff, environmental educators, and the very ecology of the park itself.This project will take place over a two-year period commencing with the selection of artists. The creation of ephemeral works is now complete and the creation of semi-permanent works will be completed in the summer of 2009.

Fringe by Shirley Weibe – Photo by Paul Colangelo

The Stanley Park Environmental Art Project will take place with and between artists, ecologists, public sector park stewards, educators, community cultural developers and the land, animals, plants, people and other living organisms of Stanley Park and the surrounding region.

Recent History

On December 15, 2006 a major windstorm struck Stanley Park. The result was a level of forest damage not seen since the Freida storm of 1962. As well as random knockdowns throughout the park, eight areas totaling approximately 41 hectares were severely impacted. This storm, and less violent successive ones, closed the entire park for several periods of relatively short duration while parts of the park will remain closed for months to come. Stanley Park became the focus of local, national and international attention as news broadcasts and internet news sources around the world reacted. How did this damage to one highly respected and cared for site reflect or link to changes in weather patterns, how could the park be fixed, and how would the impact and importance of what has happened be expressed?

And so the “site” of Stanley Park is changed. Still carried in the public imaginary as a wilderness and forest, it is layered with the sense of being under threat, damaged, images of snapped and uprooted trees linger, a permeation of the forests invulnerability has been established. The significance of this urban forest to artists and other community members has been reflected in calls for memorials made of the trees that have fallen, calls for ecologists and park stewards to speed the restoration, calls for human interference to be kept at a minimum so ‘nature’ can take its course in healing itself, outcries for forums and opportunities to have a say in what will happen and how it should happen…

Curatorial Focus

Stanley Park is a forest, but it is one in which human intrusion has significant impact. The physical, social and ecological relationships that take place in the forest and in the city that borders it, and in the world whose weather impacts it, shape this park. Ecologically based arts practices that explore these relationships, which delve into the significances, the dark places, the playful interruptions and the fragile balances have an important role to play in the “site” of Stanley Park.

• Artists collaborate with, and receive orientation from forest ecologists and park staff
• Use only natural materials – native to Stanley Park and ecologically friendly. Living material may be incorporated. No use of materials harmful to the environment such as toxic glues and paints
• No destruction of living plants, unless invasive or other species which results in net ecological benefit
• Risk management must be addressed
• Public may watch the process of creation and interact with artists
• Educational and participatory elements will be developed and delivered by project partners; lead to be taken by SPES Education Director
• Work will be monitored and if it becomes unsafe will be assisted to subside safely into the forest floor.

Cedar by John Hemsworth and Peter von Tiesenhausen – Photo by Paul Colangelo

Phase 1

The first phase of the project involves information sharing between artists, ecologists and park stewards. Selected artists engaged in initial exploratory, ephemeral and participatory works. These works will allow for relationship building and consultations with the ecologists and the park stewards. They will also form the basis for the conceptualization and creation of the semi-permanent works. The Stanley Park Ecology Society will work alongside the artists to create workshops and opportunities for the public to get involved in the Project.

Phase 2

The second phase of the project will build on the knowledge and explorations from phase 1. Artists, ecologists and Park Stewards will collaborate. Further community participation opportunities and activities in this phase will be linked into project elements and programs developed in phase 1.

Artist Selection

Artists were selectied through a mixed call. Attention was paid to artists’ histories, interests and proposed initiatives. Artistic merit, ecological merit and potentials for strategies of community comprehensibility, delivered by SPES, CACV and/or the artist, will all be considered. There is an intention to support local, regional and First Nation’s artist participation. Visual, word based, performative and story related proposals are all expected. The perceived capacity to create a work with a presence in the physical environment of the park with a minimum duration of 2 years will be an essential aesthetic requirement. Ecologists, artists (including First Nations), members of the Community Arts Council and Stanley Park Ecology Society and park steward staff will inform and participate in the selection process.

Logistics

Artist’s Fees will be paid. Some project funding is still to be confirmed and phase 2 timing may be impacted. Materials from the forest and assistance in locating and re-locating them will be provided by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation.

For more information: www.vancouver.ca/spea

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