[ISEA2015] Institutional Presentation: jil p. weaving & Laura Lee Coles – Repurposing Urban Space: Arts as the Catalyst for Change

Institutional Presentation Statement

Keywords: Vancouver Park Board, Artist Field House Studio Residency, community-engaged art, urban space

Parks throughout the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, have “field-houses” where on-site caretakers formerly resided and over time, have become vacated. Having a surplus of these unused facilities, the Vancouver Park Board explored options to repurpose these spaces. As part of the Cultural Plan, the City and Park Board sought to provide artists free space, in exchange for 350 hours of their time engaging the community and having opportunities to develop artistic practices. The Field House Studio Program places artists with community engaged and social practices into neighbourhoods to create work in and with community. The program brings the arts as an integral part of everyday life, into Vancouver neighbourhoods. It creates space to invite community, colleagues and curious visitors to share in intimate creative processes with artists through daily, shared arts experiences that are social, cooperative and collaborative. This paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of building arts communities, while emphasising its importance in emerging multi-disciplinary discourse related to urban futures.

  • jil p. weaving, CA,  is the Vancouver Park Board Coordinator for Arts Culture and the Engagement. She has a Bachelor of Arts and an Interdisciplinary Master’s in the Humanities. She also was a member of the BC Arts Council Community Arts Advisory Committee during the creation of the provincial ‘Arts Based Community Development Funding Program.’ She has developed and managed numerous programs and projects for the Vancouver Park Board including the “Art, Health and Seniors Project” in conjunction with researchers at UBC and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority; and the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project
    in collaboration with the Stanley Park Ecology Society and the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.
  • Laura Lee Coles,Vancouver, BC, CA. Laura Lee Coles is an arts-based researcher and exhibiting multi-disciplinary artist. She holds a Master of Arts from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests are: Human, Technology and Nature Interaction and Re-visioning Public Space. She is a published author and presents her research internationally at conferences. Her arts practice consists of photography, video installations (interactive, contemplative and site specific), and naturalist collage making. She has exhibited her work in Canada, United States and Europe. Laura is the founder of the arts group LocoMotoArt, and currently artists-in-residence at Aberthau Mansion via the Vancouver Park Board- Arts, Culture and Environment studio program (2013-2016). locomotoart.weebly.com

Full text (PDF) p. 1033-1036