Unfinished Business

Vancouver City Council’s two standout issues in the first half of 2011 landed for wrap-up on the same afternoon of 19 April 2011 as Unfinished Business.

Dozens upon dozens of speakers had come out for the public hearings on development proposals for their adjacent areas: Northeast False Creek and the Chinatown portion of the Downtown Eastside. Postponement of conclusion to a daytime afternoon meant that few of those speakers had the live opportunity to watch Council’s discussion and decision.

The Northeast False Creek items ran for eight sessions between February 17 and April 10. Out of a total of 193 speakers, 114 were recorded as “in opposition” — 59% against. Zoning for new height in Chinatown ran for five sessions between March 17 and April 14. Out of a total of 112 speakers, 82 were recorded as “in opposition” — 73% against.

Comparison of these two issues and their outcomes offers striking lessons in social class, exercise of power, and switcheroo politics of deferral. In both cases, affected local residents spoke up to defend the interests of their own communities, with considerable support from other concerned people across Vancouver.

The Northeast False Creek situation brought together a spectrum of formally educated professionals who rallied to the issue of gambling expansion under the leadership of the Vancouver Not Vegas coalition. As early as the February 9 public forum, it became apparent that focus on Council’s power to approve or disapprove gambling expansion would be key strategy. And that proved to be the wedge that made it possible for Council to intervene, at least in appearance. Along the way, Concord Pacific’s years of egregious foot-dragging on agreed-to amenities emerged as a strong secondary concern.

‘Renters Roundtable’ puts PR before policy

It wasn’t til the next day that I realized what had happened the day before. I went to the City’s Renter’s Roundtable at the Downtown Library [May 26 2011]. I thought it was supposed to be a place to comment on the city’s draft housing strategy, which I’d read. I thought there were some problems with the strategy. For one, it seemed to have backed down from the Homeless Action Plan’s goal of getting 800 units of social housing a year between 2005 and 2015. The new strategy was only talking about a goal of 1200 units between now and 2020, less than 200 units a year. And it was only talking about supportive social housing, not social housing for people who have low incomes but don’t have other issues.

So off we went, me and 4 people from Carnegie. We signed in. Then the people at the sign-in table asked us to sign a waiver because the event was to be filmed. I took a look at it and it said the film might be used for a number of things including advertising. I didn’t want to be in an advertisement for something I might not agree with so I didn’t sign and walked into the room.

ESSAY | Everything is not alright

The ride from Main Street skytrain station into the downtown core of Vancouver traces a line through the city like a razor-thin scalpel. As the train drifts out from the terminal into False Creek, passengers take the place of an elevated group of observers in a surgical operating room. Watching from the gallery—attentively sometimes inattentively—commuters become unwilling observers to a surgery that all too clearly reveals the city’s scared-and-gentrified body, parsed by unsure movements above a hard kernel of class stratification. The city’s undead organs—Vancouver’s Olympic Village, Concord Pacific’s presentation centre, Rennie Marketing headquarters, Roger’s Centre, International Village—become the grossly cluttered death masks of a lifeless yet undead redevelopment process.

Above the skyline, lofted to the top of Bob Rennie’s brick-clad empire and floating amidst the sharp knives of nearly-empty condominiums, a natural sight emerges: Martin Creed’s illuminated sign “EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.” The view, delivered in striking fluorescence, is rushed yet conceptually smooth, providing an internal connection between different strands of empire: the thoughtless naïveté of imperial management, the physical dominance of urban gentrification, and the careless hammer-blows of consumption.

ART REVIEW | Everything is going to…

Recently Britain-based artrepreneur Martin Creed [1] brought his band into town to kick off a May-to-October exhibition [2] under the auspices of condo king Bob Rennie. This essay focuses on the Creed-and-Rennie performance at the 17 May 2011 Emily Carr and Rennie Collection Speaker Series [3].

Martin Creed started off his solo evening in the art school spotlight with tortured musings: “I just feel like a wanker, you know … It’s much more difficult to wank in public.” A little later: “You can’t talk … I’ll try and be fast … Ah, fuck!”

Further ramblings included: “I didn’t know what I was doing … It wasn’t making me feel good.” And: “I was trying not to decide what I was doing.” And: “If you walk away and have a reason you can take that with you.” This last, for me, was the most interesting thing I heard from Creed. But the kicker is, will Bob Rennie fork out art cash for that non-object?

Eventually Creed set his sights on dialogue and asked for questions or comments. After a few exchanges, he fell into a back-and-forth with a woman who pursued the nature of his relationship with another artist that he had collaborated with. Creed seemed to use the topic to veer off into repetitive put-on. If that is what he was trying to do, he lacked two of the requisites: stellar status and youth. Stellar is much more than a decade-old Turner Prize. Think Bob Dylan for contrast.

One theme that slipped in and out of Creed’s meanderings was making distinctions and separations amid the flux of experience. Creed did manage to describe the satisfaction of taking a shit and believing that the result was not himself.