CULTURE CRAWL
Artists seek space to create
As Vancouver artists open their studios for the wildly popular Eastside Culture Crawl this weekend, artist Esther Rausenberg will be wrapping up a survey to present to the newly elected mayor and council detailing the losses workspace artists have experienced through decades of urban development.
Rausenberg, executive director of The Crawl, said artists are hoping Mayor Kennedy Stewart will follow through on his campaign promise to build “100,000 square feet of affordable studio space over the next decade by integrating arts spaces into more public buildings and affordable-housing developments, and creating new purposebuilt spaces.”
“The Culture Crawl is a really good indicator of the vibrancy that artists bring to the community,” said Rausenberg.
“It provides a direct connection to the artist that we don’t want to lose.”
The Crawl began with a few open studios in 1997, and the free event now features over 500 visual artists and attracts 30,000 visitors annually, but the event is fighting for its survival.
“Without workspaces the community will no longer exist,” said Rausenberg.
Rausenberg, a photo-based artist, has been fighting to protect artists’ spaces since the 1980s, when the post-Expo development boom led to mass evictions of artists in Railtown. The industrial-zoned area was once a vibrant community for artists who worked, and lived, under the legal radar in cheap warehouse spaces.
“The fire marshals came in for ‘safety reasons,’ with axes and broke down the doors and the artists would scatter like rats,” said Rausenberg.
Artists are still being chased out of the affordable spaces they need to create work — not with axes, but with development. Over the years city council has tried to address the issue with flexible policies and guidelines, including live/ work zoning for artists, but rent increases have continued to drive artists out.
“Work/ live spaces are often used for other kinds of businesses and not affordable enough for artists,” said Rausenberg.
Rausenberg, who received funding for the project from a city cultural infrastructure grant, is hoping to counter the situation with data: “In order to move forward, the city needs data to answer the question of how much space we have lost.”
The Culture Crawl is a really good indicator of the vibrancy that artists bring to the community.
The survey will help determine how much artist workspace has been lost in the Culture Crawl area, from Columbia Street to Victoria Drive, First Avenue to the waterfront.
Rausenberg is urging any artist who is currently working in a space, or who has lost a space, to fill out the confidential survey.