About the Eastside Arts District
What is the EAD?
An introduction to the Eastside Arts District
To preserve the unique character of Vancouver’s Eastside and to retain, promote and develop artists and cultural production, the Eastside Arts Society is developing an Eastside Arts District (EAD).
The EAD will include the geographic area where many artists currently live or work and would, through legislative, economic and cultural measures, prioritize the creation, support, retention and celebration of arts in East Vancouver.
What is an Arts District?
The concept of an Arts District, while varying globally, generally refers to a recognized area within a city that features a high concentration of arts and cultural facilities. These districts have proven effective in fostering the clustering of cultural industries and promoting economic development. For instance, a study of nine U.S. Arts Districts found that arts organizations within these areas generated, on average, over twice the per capita revenue compared to those outside such districts.
Further research on 99 cultural districts indicated that formal recognition positively impacted employment and income levels. Vancouver’s Eastside embodies many of the traits necessary for a successful Arts District:
- Diverse Arts Assets: It hosts a variety of cultural resources, ensuring its sustainability.
- Defined Area: The district is clearly demarcated, enhancing its identity.
- Critical Mass of Artists: With hundreds of artists, the area has a vibrant creative community.
- Cultural Venues: It features performance spaces, artist studios, and galleries, creating a rich cultural ecosystem.
These characteristics position the Eastside as a potential leader in cultural and economic development, reinforcing the importance of supporting its artistic community.
Making it all Work
Vancouver’s Eastside is a vibrant and distinct arts and culture ecology with the core characteristics that make a successful arts and cultural district. In formally establishing the Eastside Arts District, the Eastside Arts Society aims to lead and collectively advocate for the sustainability of all arts and culture on the Eastside.
The Eastside Arts Society has been a leader in shaping the area as a community, economic, and arts and cultural hub for close to 3 decades. In 2019, the Eastside Arts Society (EAS) published the award-winning report A City Without Art? No Net Loss, Plus!, which quantified the net loss of 400,000 ft2 of artist studio space on the Eastside in the preceding 10 years. However, the story of unaffordability, displacement and erasure is not limited to the visual arts and is a common story shared by other artistic disciplines.
Through capacity-building initiatives, new and expanded policies, innovative funding opportunities, arts and cultural asset mapping, and inclusive governance, a formally established Eastside Arts District (EAD) will amplify the voices of Vancouver’s artistic community.
Mapping the EAD
The Eastside includes hundreds of buildings and sites that serve overlapping communities for their creative practice and production. Rehearsal and recording spaces, public parks, festival sites, public artwork, workshops, venues, and galleries ensure access to hundreds of artists and cultural producers who engage with thousands of patrons annually.
Examples of important Eastside arts and cultural infrastructure include:
- The Arts Factory
- Parker Street Studios
- Mergatroid Studios
- The Rickshaw Theatre
- Progress Lab 1422
- Firehall Arts Centre
- the CULTCH
- China Cloud Studios
- …to name just a few
This website aims to dynamically map the hundreds of cultural sites and spaces within this area, making them more accessible and discoverable. The EAD aims to document the many culturally significant areas within the EAD boundaries through curated and researched Guides. These include the area’s Indigenous culture and history, historically significant areas such as Chinatown, Strathcona, Hogan’s Alley and the history of the Japanese community around the Powell Street area.
Indigenous Context and Culture
The Eastside Arts Society (EAS) recognizes that we are working on the traditional, unceded ancestral territories of the xWmə0kWəy’əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl’ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. These areas are culturally significant sites in terms of their historical contexts but also equally important as contemporary sites of gathering, learning and exchange.
The EAD supports reconciliation through the preservation documentation of tangible arts and cultural assets and the safeguarding of intangible arts and cultural assets. The EAS is working in collaboration with Indigenous consultants to conduct research and make appropriate recommendations, particularly in the development of an Eastside Arts District and Arts and Cultural Asset Map. This work is an ongoing process through which EAS is developing relationships with Host Nations, and is partly reflected in the Indigenous Spaces Guide.