Canada’s poorest postal code, right in the historic heart of the world’s “most livable city.”
North America’s largest open-air drug market.
Some labels stick, and the ones above are clamped onto Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside like an addiction. Labels fade, however, when the slow march of progress gains momentum.
There are the cliches and then there is a more complex matrix of the DTES community that includes the arts, culture and social workers, business both small and large, developers, academia, the forces of the 2010 Olympics, and all levels of government as well as the disenfranchised.
The neighborhood, ironically, is also one of the country’s most valuable patches of real estate. It’s home as well to no shortage of visionaries mediating between the competing forces and creating collaboration.
One of them is Irwin Oostindie.
A 20-year inhabitant of the neighborhood, Oostindie has worked variously as a community centre publicist, gallery curator, publisher, community activist and media innovator.
Oostindie is the executive director of W2: Community Media Arts, a 14,000 sq. foot centre set to open next year, as part of the $310-million Woodward’s redevelopment, which also a new Simon Fraser University campus and two condo towers incorporating both luxury and social housing.
“We’re trying to break the digital divide between the marginalized residents of the community and those who have access to technology,” Oostindie says. “It will be a world-class media centre that includes TV, radio, performance and youth facilities.”
Fearless City Media, a pilot project aimed at giving the poor the tools to tell their stories, is already up and running.
With access to mobile phones, computers, live mobile video editing, website, screens in public spaces and the support of media and tech professionals, the participants learn valuable skills while interpreting the world around them from their own point of view. They are no longer just a subject for other media to point at and shoot.
Fearless grew out of a venture called the Downtown Eastside Community Arts Network, founded in 2003, a collection of artists, galleries and shops that seeks to make all neighborhood residents part of the cultural conversation. Oostindie was active as the curator of Gallery Gachet, which supports the work of artists facing mental health issues.
When W2 opens, Fearless will continue as one of four “social enterprises” in the facility, which also include a café and open spaces for meetings, performances and exhibitions. The fourth part is the “incubator” where people can develop new ideas with professionals from media, gaming and technology companies located in the Downtown Eastside.
Oostindie and his collaborators aim to make W2 a model for how media and education can be a transformative element in neighborhood gentrification. Rather than pushing out the marginalized, the artists and small businesses, they all remain forces in making the community richer culturally.
Over the past 20 years, Oostindie himself has been transformed by the work he’s taken on.
“My background was in printing presses. I was a bit of a luddite at first, cautious about technology, even though I did use cel phones and websites as far back as 1995. What’s come out of my experiences is the recognition of what can happen when you bring together social value and appropriate technology. You can explore, find solutions, when you marry the arts, technology and industry.”
— Tim Carlson
Links:
W2: Community Media Arts
www.creativetechnology.org
www.fearlesscity.ca
North America’s largest open-air drug market.
Some labels stick, and the ones above are clamped onto Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside like an addiction. Labels fade, however, when the slow march of progress gains momentum.
There are the cliches and then there is a more complex matrix of the DTES community that includes the arts, culture and social workers, business both small and large, developers, academia, the forces of the 2010 Olympics, and all levels of government as well as the disenfranchised.
The neighborhood, ironically, is also one of the country’s most valuable patches of real estate. It’s home as well to no shortage of visionaries mediating between the competing forces and creating collaboration.
One of them is Irwin Oostindie.
A 20-year inhabitant of the neighborhood, Oostindie has worked variously as a community centre publicist, gallery curator, publisher, community activist and media innovator.
Oostindie is the executive director of W2: Community Media Arts, a 14,000 sq. foot centre set to open next year, as part of the $310-million Woodward’s redevelopment, which also a new Simon Fraser University campus and two condo towers incorporating both luxury and social housing.
“We’re trying to break the digital divide between the marginalized residents of the community and those who have access to technology,” Oostindie says. “It will be a world-class media centre that includes TV, radio, performance and youth facilities.”
Fearless City Media, a pilot project aimed at giving the poor the tools to tell their stories, is already up and running.
With access to mobile phones, computers, live mobile video editing, website, screens in public spaces and the support of media and tech professionals, the participants learn valuable skills while interpreting the world around them from their own point of view. They are no longer just a subject for other media to point at and shoot.
Fearless grew out of a venture called the Downtown Eastside Community Arts Network, founded in 2003, a collection of artists, galleries and shops that seeks to make all neighborhood residents part of the cultural conversation. Oostindie was active as the curator of Gallery Gachet, which supports the work of artists facing mental health issues.
When W2 opens, Fearless will continue as one of four “social enterprises” in the facility, which also include a café and open spaces for meetings, performances and exhibitions. The fourth part is the “incubator” where people can develop new ideas with professionals from media, gaming and technology companies located in the Downtown Eastside.
Oostindie and his collaborators aim to make W2 a model for how media and education can be a transformative element in neighborhood gentrification. Rather than pushing out the marginalized, the artists and small businesses, they all remain forces in making the community richer culturally.
Over the past 20 years, Oostindie himself has been transformed by the work he’s taken on.
“My background was in printing presses. I was a bit of a luddite at first, cautious about technology, even though I did use cel phones and websites as far back as 1995. What’s come out of my experiences is the recognition of what can happen when you bring together social value and appropriate technology. You can explore, find solutions, when you marry the arts, technology and industry.”
— Tim Carlson
Links:
W2: Community Media Arts
www.creativetechnology.org
www.fearlesscity.ca
