By the numbers: The disappearance of arts spaces in Vancouver over time
Credit to Author: Zak Vescera| Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2019 23:44:16 +0000
In the fall, Eastside Culture Crawl executive director Esther Rausenberg is hosting an exhibit on displacement. Not as a vague inspiration or theme — the exhibit is about the artists themselves, who are increasingly being priced out of the city’s housing market.
“In the last 10 years … we’re just heading downhill,” she said. “We’re being squeezed out more-and-more.”
City officials and artists are grappling with the loss of cultural space, which senior cultural planner Alix Sales says is “the biggest issue facing the cultural sector” in the city. According to a city map of over 1,500 venues, Vancouver lost 100,000 square feet of cultural space between 2014 and 2017. That dip was especially felt in private rehearsal spaces, the amount of which fell from 76,289 to 43,505 sq. ft. over the three-year period.
The city doesn’t track “underground” spaces and has no data beyond 2017. Rausenberg’s organization is in the process of collecting their own data from artists, but her sense is the decline has continued.
“This is a totally unique cultural ecology that we have here,” said Rausenberg, in reference to the concentration of artists in East Vancouver. “We’re at risk of losing that.”
While rents for arts spaces and housing have been rising, statistics indicate artists’ salaries haven’t. Statistics Canada data from 2017 says cultural-sector jobs accounted for 2.7 per cent of B.C.’s GDP. In 2016, the average salary for a performing artist in Vancouver was $35,132, but the median was only $17,075, indicating half of salaries are lower than that.
Vancouver city Coun. Pete Fry used to operate his own warehouse spaces, which he credits with allowing him to expand his business and craft. Today, he says those spaces are out of reach.
“The notion of the ‘starving artist’ is very much a reality in Vancouver. It’s the price people are paying,” said Fry.
Some cities, like Richmond, have introduced artist live-work spaces in partnership with developers to great success, says the city’s art-services manager, Liesl Jauk.
But in Vancouver, those spaces are scarce, partly because of increased speculation from developers in formal industrial areas.
Vancouver city Coun. Lisa Dominato, who has recently begun championing the growth of Vancouver’s nightlife, thinks the city could expand the use of its existing spaces to let artists host more after-hours events. She and Sales say a range of upcoming updates on the city’s music strategy, cultural-spaces strategy and housing strategy could also help turn the tide by identifying unaffordability as the driving factor.
“While we have stand-alone strategies, we have to not lose sight of the fact that there is a connection between our city plan and what we’re doing with the music strategy or what we’re doing with the night-economy strategy,” said Dominato.
Sales says the plans will help set a “long view” of cultural-space restoration, including a “no-net-loss” policy and an emphasis on community-based, non profit spaces and initiatives, like Rausenberg’s Eastside Culture Crawl.
“We have to ask ourselves what kind of city we want to have in five, 10, 15 or 20 years,” said Sales.
Nathan Drillot, who used to operate the music-venue and studio INDEX until the property was bought by Low Tide Properties, Chip Wilson’s company, says he’s had good conversations with the city and trusts they’re moving in the right direction.
But he notes the pressure on artists is part of a bigger picture of unaffordability that he worries is pushing talent farther east where pay is higher — or at least where rents are cheaper.
“We continually pay more money every year in the form of rental and tax increases,” said Drillot. “At some point, something’s going to give.”