Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2008

Toronto gets it — will Victoria?

Take a look at this article from CEOs for Cities: Artscape Helps Broker Triple-Win Deal in Queen West Triangle for the low-down on a fascinating & essential new project in Toronto.

What Toronto will do is provide space for artists — precisely the kind of people who provide the “infrastructure” that innovative, creative cities need, yet also precisely the kinds of people who, being on the lower end of the earning scale, typically get squeezed out when cities gentrify.

From the article:

An innovative partnership has been forged in the Queen West Triangle between Artscape, the City of Toronto, Westside Lofts (Urbancorp) and Active 18 that will see the creation of a 56,000 square feet artist live/work project within the Westside Lofts development at 150 Sudbury Street.

The development of affordable artist live/work units within a condominium complex is a first for Toronto. The deal also represents a new self-financing model for affordable housing development that requires only a nominal public investment.

“Developers, community activists, and the City have a strong shared interested in making the Triangle as creative and dynamic as possible” said Artscape President and CEO, Tim Jones. “There is no reason why this model cannot be replicated across the city to address the decades-old problem of the displacement of artists through gentrification.”

The value of the project has been independently appraised at $19 million. Artscape will purchase the units for $8.4 million, a price that includes the cost of construction but not architectural and other soft costs, land value contributed by the City in the form of free density, or profit.

Artscape plans to create up to 70 affordable ownership and rental units. Monthly rent for a one bedroom rental unit is targeted at $725 or roughly 80% of Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s average market rent for Toronto. Unit sizes and mix will be determined after consultation with potential purchasers and renters. Construction on the project will begin in January 2008 with completion projected for early 2010.

Obviously, cities like Victoria (not to mention Vancouver), which, due to housing affordability issues are in danger of losing their creatives, could benefit from schemes such as this. Seems to me it’s a pressing problem insofar as we don’t have the “other way out” for creatives at this point, namely having them merge into higher-paying industries. We’re still nurturing that along, too… Visual artists, musicians, theatre people: their support structures are just now moving from skeletal to skin-and-bones, yet our housing (UN)affordability is the 800-lb. gorilla with plenty of muscle.

Oct.31 update: Canada’s National Post also has an article about this, published yesterday, Oct.30: Details trickle out on Queen West Triangle deal. It includes more, …well, details. That article is in turn based on another one published by the same paper on the same day, City, developers reach a deal on West Queen West, and both article include photos (the former a photo of the site today; the latter, a rendering of what it might look like). Interesting quote from the “Details,” which points out the danger(s) of downtowns becoming condo-only communities that don’t have as many job-generating businesses or industries as the suburbs: “It could hopefully serve as a model. It’s not really just about the Triangle. It’s about making Toronto a place that doesn’t become a bedroom community for the suburbs.” The following bit made me sit up, since we also have an old Carnegie Library, sadly underused now and with no one knowing quite what to do with it anymore since it’s not big enough for a library, but awkward for office space, too:

“It’s a groundbreaking project in a number of ways,” Mr. Jones said, adding that the project’s self-financing model could serve as a city-wide template. “It means that if we can do it here in the Triangle, we can build hundreds of these units across the city.”

Landmark’s largesse is also helping transform the old Carnegie Library building, a nearly 100-year-old site with soaring ceilings that currently houses Toronto Public Health offices, into a “new performing arts hub.”

Here’s a picture of what the new proposal would look like:

On the trail of Richard Florida, who said…

…that creativity is revolutionizing the global economy. What Canadian cities have trouble with, however, is their tutelage to senior levels of government. Canadian cities are wholly the creatures of the Provinces and aside from property taxes can’t raise their own capital.

Read the following article by Lance Carlson, who proposes overcoming that hurdle through enlightened provincial leadership (article via the Edmonton Journal):

Creativity, innovation key to unlocking potential

Excerpt:

Creativity and innovation are the answer to many of the challenges we face and the key to unlocking our potential. We want creative and innovative people in our businesses and non-profit organizations; governments need to find innovative answers to pressing issues, and we are hopeful that our children will learn the art of being creative as they move through our education system.

Innovation, although often used interchangeably with creativity, is not the same thing. Creativity is a human trait, whereas innovation is an improvement in the way we do things. Alberta needs more of both.

Unfortunately, we often think that only “special” people are creative and innovative. In fact, the evidence surrounding creativity and innovation tells us that virtually everyone possesses these abilities.

(…)

To truly invest in creativity and innovation, we have to understand that our resources should leverage the very principles of creativity and innovation. There are three things that we can do to make this happen.

First, collaboration and interaction are needed for new ideas to be translated into original actions. The myth of the singular, brooding creative genius who works in isolation is indeed a legend, as most research tells us that profound innovations typically emerge from social interaction and collaboration. We must facilitate the ability of the population to interact and engage in alliances so that “experts” are in dialogue with the general public, and members of the public with one another.

(…)

…we should eradicate barriers to innovation by identifying government policies that may discourage entrepreneurial activity. This might mean the reconfiguration of silo-like government ministries and agencies that actually work against imaginative solutions. The bureaucracy should be redesigned around a provincial vision for innovation, creativity and imagination that rejects the traditional approach of assigning responsibilities to departments based on a conventional understanding of specific functions.

Lance Carlson, who gets it, is president of the Alberta College of Art and Design.

More updates soon…

Too many things on the agenda, and a looming computer-allergy as a result: the combined effect is that I’m once again behind on my “hope to do/ blue sky” list.

One of those to-do items includes posting more of my FOCUS Magazine articles (in PDF) to the link here, just above my about page (see sidebar) . Well, October’s article about the Belleville Street Terminal “renovation” is out, and I do plan to add it later today — and also add some of the earlier months still outstanding.

Meanwhile, I sent my first-ever letter to the National Post, and it was published! Slightly abbreviated, but still. The article I responded to was by Robert Fulford, entitled To the Turnstiles! (Oct. 2) — great article that leads with the question, “Should the public pay to visit museums? It’s a question rarely asked in Canada…” Go read the whole thing. The next day, the National Post published J. Kelly Nestruck’s Price To Peep At Pepys? Pfffft!, a good follow-up.

My letter is on this page in today’s National Post, and it reads:

 

Museums: an invaluable part of our national fabric

 

National Post

Published: Thursday, October 04, 2007

I moved back to Victoria some years ago and was shocked to realize that the Royal B.C. Museum (RBCM) now charges a hefty admission fee. When I lived here as a kid 30 years ago, the museum was free, which meant that I was free to wander into its galleries regularly to indulge my interests. I didn’t need to make a “special day” of it or cajole my parents into spending money they didn’t have, and consequently, the threshold for culture was level with my day-to-day life. It wasn’t something I had difficulty crossing.

Curiously, I ended up earning a PhD in art history at Harvard. I won’t say it was because of the RBCM, but I can’t help wondering how many Canadian kids today are cut out of the experience of culture because we keep it hidden behind a turnstile. By charging admission to collections that effectively already belong to us, museums are double-dipping into the public’s purse.

Yule Heibel, Victoria.

The editor took out a couple of sentences, for the sake of brevity. Understandable, but I’ll add them here:

After the first paragraph (which ends with the word “crossing”), I wrote: “I didn’t need to rely exclusively on a peer culture for entertainment, or hang out at the mall. Unhurried, I could go to the museum, and take my time absorbing its offerings.” What I meant by that I had a free venue that was public, but in which I could be an oddball (a museum-goer, gasp!). I didn’t need to be part of a group, or herd.

After the last bit in the published letter, I added my concerns around infrastructure funding. What I wrote was this: “…museums are also double-dipping into the public’s purse. I guess this is what ‘downloading’ is all about, with Joe or Jane Public at the very bottom of that particular food chain. But as Fulford notes, maybe it’s time to call the politicians to heel and impress upon them that free admission should be the norm.”

That last bit references a key concern of mine at present: municipal infrastructure funding. Perhaps more on that later, but let me just say that I also believe that the arts are part of a society’s — and particularly a city’s — infrastructure. All municipal infrastructure needs proper funding.

On the road to Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Madness, one sleeping bag at a time…

Marianne Lepa, publisher of Arts News Canada (see my blog post from July 21), wrote in today’s by-subscription newsletter about Kimberly Baker, an artist who recently graduated from Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver.

It’s a story of the ham-fisted 2010 Olympics/ Vancouver Organizing Committee’s approach to “copyright” and marketing rights, and it should shock the hell out of any sane person. I’ll quote from Marianne’s email (which is based on Baker’s article in Common Ground):

For her graduation project, [Kimberly Baker] created a poster that depicts a homeless man in a sleeping bag with his shopping cart beside him. The image is reproduced five times and placed just so, each sleeping bag is coloured in five vibrant shades. The title of the poster is “Vancouver 2010″.

Imagine Baker’s surprise when the printer told her that “2010″ has been trademarked by the Olympic Organizing Committee and she was breaking the law by using the date on her poster.

“Sure enough, an investigation showed that Canada had passed Bill C-47, the Olympic and Paralympics Marks Act, legislation that provides the Vancouver Olympic organizers with extreme power over the symbols and language linked with the Olympics,” she writes in a commentary on Common Ground, found in our Opinion section today.

She went ahead and exhibited the poster anyway. It garnered enough attention that it earned a Vancouver Sun review, but unlike the other four works reviewed by the Sun, Baker’s poster wasn’t given a photograph.

“Had the Vancouver Sun been so intimidated about liability issues pertaining to any formation of ‘Vancouver 2010′ ,” she wonders, “that they wouldn’t print the image?”

Appropriating objects from our culture is necessary, Baker argues, “relevant issues become visible to a broader, public audience, challenging the notions of political authority, as a result.”

After learning that she may find herself in an expensive and protracted court case if she displayed the poster, Baker instead sought permission from VANOC to use the poster. It was granted, but for only limited applications. She met with Colin Jarvis, VANOC’s manager of Commercial Rights Management.

“When I met with Mr. Jarvis, he was very accommodating and open to answering all my questions. He assured me that VANOC’s position is that they are not interested in litigation with artists and that artists have a right to critique.

“When discussing my posters, Jarvis said that VANOC would not have a problem with them. However, if put them up on bill boards across the Downtown Eastside, there would be a problem because that action would be considered more in the light of my creating a ‘campaign’, as opposed to my displaying a work of art. So how do I know where the threshold is before I cross the boundary into creating allegedly illegal art?”

A link to Appropriation Art, a coalition of art professionals concerned for the protection of the artist to appropriate cultural objects in face of stiffening copyright legislation, can be found in our Blue Column under Advocacy Links.

Readers and local people might remember the equally outrageous attempts by the VANOC to force the Olympia Restaurant, in operation for over 15 years in Vancouver, to change its name. According to VANOC, its use of the name “Olympia” as well as the 5 Olympic rings under the name — which the restaurant had been using for 15 years — was suddenly a violation of copyright. Commenting on the absurdity of it all, Denny Hatch wrote in November 2005:

…forcing Alvand to change the name of his long-established restaurant seems gratuitously nasty. It means not only changing the sign, but also the menus, napkins and brochures, as well as spending money for public and customer awareness.

Further, it renders useless his entry in all the listings of Vancouver restaurants on the Internet and in printed materials all over the world.

Plus, in five years the whole thing will be over.

It just blows me away that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or the Canadian Civil Liberties Union or the B.C. Civil Liberties Association haven’t started a … well, a civil liberties fight over this. Are there too many of them, are they too scattered (a federal association, a federal union, a provincial association — sheesh, is this necessary? are they effective?)?

For more on the question of VANOC’s overstepping of trademark & copyright (copywrong) claims, see the March 29, 2007 Vancouver Sun article, The law says don’t try to make money using these ‘Olympic’ words, by Jeff Lee (it’s spread over 4 webpages). On the last page, Lee lists words that, according to VANOC, may not be used.

“May not be used”: christ, it sounds like some cheap scare tactic at Hogwarts, doesn’t it? Here’s the list:

• See You in Vancouver

• See You in Whistler

• See You in Beijing

• Let the Dreams Begin

• Friend

• Sea To Sky

• Top

• 2010

• ‘10

• We’re Next

• Road to Beijing

• Driven by Nature

• Road to Vancouver

• Road to Whistler

• Driven by Dreams

• Celebrate the Impossible

• Vancouver ‘10

• Vancouver 2-10

• Vancouver 2′10

• Gold Medal

• Game Plan

• 2000

• 2002

• ‘00

• ‘02

• Host Country

• Bid Booster

• Bid Champion

• Beijing and Beyond

• I’m Backing the Bid

• It’s Our Time To Shine

• For The Fire Within

• Voldemort

Ok, ok, I made the last one up. But the rest? Even J.K. Rowling couldn’t come up with something as absurd as this… If you think I’m kidding, Lee spells it out:

Here [the list, above] are SOME of the words that are claimed as official marks by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games, its predecessor Vancouver Bid Corp., the Canadian Olympic Committee and its predecessor Canadian Olympic Association. All are still in force. Vanoc has ownership of these official marks as the rights-holder for the 2010 Winter Games. The COC also has some of these words under other marketing rights they haven’t given up to Vanoc but share in common.

This is so wrong it doesn’t copy. This is so hugely wrong, it can only be laughed at. Except it isn’t funny.

Yann Martel, bearing great gifts — Is Stephen Harper reading?

Arts News Canada carried an article from Halifax’s Daily News today: Author plays professor to prime minister, one book at a time:

One of Canada’s most popular authors is taking a decidedly novel approach in his efforts to encourage appreciation of the arts - he’s started a website to help expand Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s literary horizons.

Yann Martel, the author of the award-winning 2002 novel Life of Pi, is behind the website “What Is Stephen Harper Reading,” a project aimed giving the prime minister a little taste of culture.

Since April, Martel has been mailing Harper a different inscribed book every two weeks, along with a personal letter praising the book’s virtues. The letters are posted online at www.whatis stephenharperreading.ca.

Martel admits he’s taking a few jabs at Harper, but insists he isn’t preaching.

“There’s no point in writing to someone if you’re going to insult them. I certainly don’t agree with the prime minister - I’d never vote for him - but that doesn’t mean one becomes petty and petulant,” he says.

“I really do believe that if the prime minister reads any of these books that I’ve sent him, he will be a different person. It’s a completely sincere conviction. Otherwise, why would I bother being a writer?” [click on the link above for the rest of the article]

I then visited the website Yann Martel has dedicated to this project: What is Stephen Harper reading?. Please take a look — the letters that accompany Martel’s bibliographic offerings are literary works in themselves. They’re funny, full of insight into literature and life, and deeply philosophical, too. Stephen Harper is lucky to have such a “professor,” and amazingly for us, we get to read over their shoulders.

Harper isn’t saying much back, alas…

Arts News Canada: Most Valued Resource

Just a big shout-out today to Marianne Lepa, who edits and publishes Arts News Canada every weekday, and thereby provides a hugely valuable resource for the arts in this country. Not only does she pull together all the relevant bits from what seems like just about every news source in Canada, but she sorts each item into sections that take you straight to your topic of interest. Arts Business? Scroll down to that section, or click the link to see all the articles in that rubric. Ditto Opinion and Media & Broadcasting and Literary Arts and Film & TV and Dance and Performing Arts and Music and Visual Arts… You get the picture. I mean, you really get the picture!

Especially wonderful for users of Arts News Canada is Marianne’s ability to sum up the gist of each article in a brief paragraph — you know whether or not you need to click through because you’re given the context. And if all that isn’t enough, you can subscribe to get an email summary of the day’s articles delivered to your inbox.

Thanks, Marianne, for providing such a great service! (Note: there is a “tip jar” for contributions to help keep Arts News Canada online…)