February 2009 Archives

Downtown Eastside History sites streamed live 11 am February 7th 2009

By
Mobilizing Mouse
on February 5, 2009 2:31 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Inspired by the Walking Tour brochure produced by the SFU labour history department in the early 1990s, this map shows the 20 sites featured on the Eastside of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

On February 7th 2009, 20 Downtown Eastside videographers will stream the 20 sites live to the Gallery Gachet at 88 East Cordova in Vancouver, and worldwide via http://fearlesscity.ca/.

Attend, watch, comment via the map or visit us on the web - http://fearlesscity.ca/. - between 11 and 12 Pacific Standard Time on Saturday February 7th 2009
Live Event: February 7th, 10am to 12am, venue for live streaming, vjs, pancake breakfast and live event
Gallery Gachet
88 E Cordova St
Vancouver, BC V6A 1K2, CA
ph: 604.687.2468

It's often said that if we ignore our history we are doomed to repeat
it. By recognizing and recording the stories of 20 sites in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, mobile videographers connect past to present, creating an opening for informed reflection on the future. This crossmedia exhibition and web project remixes Labour, Work, and Working People: A Working Class and Labour History Walking Tour using Web 2.0 strategies to expand the number of voices heard and stories told.


Using the latest in digital technology, live video streams tell tales of 20 DTES sites through enduring memories of Vancouver's labour history. Videographers present the history and context of each site and reveal new relationships with contemporary players. Strikes, lockouts, evictions, state suspicion, attacks on working class movements, markers of
a death - each site has a unique role to play in the story of the
neighbourhood. New tools are being used to harness history and bring it forward with mobile devices, wireless networks, live screens and video mixers.

Following a live event on Saturday, Feb. 7, the public is invited to interact with a month-long gallery installation and add to the stories, while our collective knowledge of DTES history deepens as it is reinterpreted through a digital lens.


Continue reading Downtown Eastside History sites streamed live 11 am February 7th 2009 .

Umbrella agency urged for DTES support groups VPD chief proposes body with 'director for most vulnerable'

By
Mobilizing Mouse
on February 5, 2009 2:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
 
Gerry Bellett
Vancouver sun

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Thousands of Downtown Eastside residents have problems that aren't being dealt with, Police Chief Jim Chu says.
CREDIT: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun files
Thousands of Downtown Eastside residents have problems that aren't being dealt with, Police Chief Jim Chu says.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu is calling on the federal and provincial governments to create an agency to deal exclusively with the unmanageable social problems that afflict thousands of people living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES).

Chu says the agency should be under the control of a "director for the most vulnerable," a civil servant with the type of power given to heads of Crown corporations and agencies.

It would be the director's job to oversee all the government programs that now found in the area and hold the agencies that deliver them accountable for producing measurable results.

The recommendation is contained in the 59-page document Project Lockstep, a united effort to save lives in the Downtown Eastside, to be released today.

Chu also called for the VPD to move back to the Downtown Eastside to aid in the area's rehabilitation.

The report argues that while there have been major efforts to improve the state of affairs in the Downtown Eastside, they have failed. It says "deliberate and unintended policies and changes have played significant roles in the continuation and, or, worsening of the problems that are concentrated in the area."


Continue reading Umbrella agency urged for DTES support groups VPD chief proposes body with 'director for most vulnerable' .

Artists outnumber autoworkers: report Earnings for artists 37% lower than for average Canadian worker -- and falling

By
Mobilizing Mouse
on February 5, 2009 1:54 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Updated: Thursday, February 5, 2009 | 3:19 PM ET

CBC News

The number of Canadians who earned most of their income from the arts topped 140,000 in Canada in 2006, according to a report based on statistics from the 2006 census.

That made artists more numerous than auto workers -- about 135,000 Canadians worked in the auto sector in 2006 -- according to a report from Hill Strategies in Hamilton, Ont., created for the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Canadian artists remain among the most impoverished of the working poor, earning an average annual income of $22,700, about 37 per cent less than the rest of the Canadian workforce.

And not all of that income is earned in the arts -- the census doesn't ask how much artists might make as waitresses and busboys, says Kelly Hill, president of Hill Strategies.

"Those earnings are included in the statistics. It's even more depressing from that standpoint," he told CBC News.


Continue reading Artists outnumber autoworkers: report Earnings for artists 37% lower than for average Canadian worker -- and falling.
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