The Vivarium Gallery is located at 2130 Yew Street in Kitsilano and is a little breath of fresh air in Kits that makes me love my neighbourhood.
A locally run art gallery, it makes use of its 12×12 entrance space to showcase various pieces of art to any passer-by. I walk past it everyday on my way home from the gym, and have started to look forward to seeing it. Whoever thought that Fitness World would get me to see more art?
Here’s the website. And here’s the description.
The VIVARIUM GALLERY was co-founded by jamie griffiths and Christopher Rodrigues in the summer of 2008 as an online gallery with a ‘real’ ground-level, window-front space that rests in the affluent neighborhood of Kitsilano, Vancouver, Canada. A 12′ x 12′ rear projection screen extends the range of artistic mediums the gallery can host; 2D and 3D artwork, video and multi-media installations. All exhibitions are archived on our website and can remain for sale even after the exhibition closes. The VIVARIUM GALLERY has developed a community based patronage, promoting our artists through private invitation and word of mouth. Our mission is to continue to provide exhibition opportunities for local artists, while fostering a meeting place for the Arts and Culture community of Vancouver.
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I’m not the biggest art enthusiast around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Philistine (I was a Liberal Arts student after all), but I’ve always been drawn more to history/economics/philsophy rather than painting/sculpture. That said, I do like some artists, one of them being Kris Kuksi.
Whether it’s my grade 4 model building days, my love for steampunk or an appreciation of religious subtext in works of art, Kris Kuksi delivers. It’s creepy, cool, ugly, beautiful and weird all at the same time. If you’ve got a soft spot for the macabre and delusional, check out his website.
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I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have developed some close relationships with people from every region of Canada. My two closest friends are both from Quebec (one a francophone, the other an anglophone), all my cousins are from the prairies (Alberta & Saskatchewan), several ex-teammates of mine are from the Maritimes, and being close to the mining industry I’ve worked with Yukoners for the last several years. While each person has their own specific characteristics and idiosyncrasies , the one thing that stands out about all of these people is that, to varying degrees, they reflect the culture and attitudes of their homes.
This got me thinking…what the hell am I? Apparently, a Cascadian.
So, I ask, what exactly is a Cascadian identity? It seems to me that it varies from two extremes, unabashed boosterism and obstinate negativity. Though that may just be Vancouver as Cascadia proper generally includes the most of coastal British Columbia, Washington and Oregon states, parts of Idaho and the northern coast of California.
Cultural singularities of Cascadia include environmentalism, a strong bike culture, a comparatively fertile indie music scene, a vibrant economy of artisanal beer and wine production, and a wide participation in outdoor sports. Also, as compared to the rest of North America, Cascadia has both the highest levels of atheism and participation in eastern and New Age religions. And, of course, I probably have to include northern Cascadia’s favourite cash crop.
While politically divided, the similarities in culture from San Francisco to Vancouver are a bit striking. While I still cringe at the brainchild slogan of some moron in PR about being the Best Place on Earth (seriously, who the hell OKed that?), I think the fact that I even have to wonder at what a Cascadian identity is makes me a Cascadian.
Culturally speaking, Cascadia ia young, really young, the youngest cultural region in North America. So I guess that makes Cascadians adolescents…which would at least explain our preference for dope, playing outside and weird religions.
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I just got home from a beer with a friend who has left the world of finance to go back to school. I’m a natural-born cynic, he’s a natural-born optimist, so together we make for good debate. And while he’ll hate me for doing this, I have to post my point from our latest argument, with the help of Milton Friedman.
First, let me say, greed is a vice. It enslaves. It distorts.
It abuses otherwise normal human beings who become enthralled by it, and it overlooks horrendous atrocities that turn one’s stomach.
All that said…it’s the best thing we got going for an imperfect planet with an imperfect people. Without the greed of the West (or any other great civilization), we would not enjoy the prosperity we have today. Disagree with me all you want, it doesn’t matter.
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In my continual battle to focus less on financial markets (a battle I’m loosing), here’s another attempt at mixing it up at Vancityguy.com
The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is underway in our fine city, and there’s more than a few flicks that I’m really eager to check out. Here’s a runthrough of what and why:
Title: American Casino
Category: Economics
What: A scathing review the predatory practices of the mortgages brokers in the United States who precipitated the current crisis. A spotlight is shown on how predatory some of these sub-prime lenders really were.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz
Category: Economics
What: Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and former chief economist of the World Bank is now a vocal critic of the “free-market fundamentalism” of the IMF and his former employer, the World Bank, and offers an alternative path.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Let’s Make Money
Category: Capitalism
What: There’s a famous saying that the best time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets. Moneymen are interviewed in a staggering explication of just how global finances actually work. Prepare for scenes of greed, corruption and hypocrisy.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Sweet Crude
Category: The Oil Industry
What: Projected to supply a quarter of the US oil imports by 2015, the Niger Delta occupies an increasingly fraught position. This is highlighted by a group of articulate students who demand an end to the environmental degradation and a share of the astronomical oil profits.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: The Age of Stupid
Category: Fiction/Climate Change
What: It could be the end of the world as we know it, at least according to UK filmmaker Franny Armstrong’s inventive documentary The Age of Stupid, which adds a futuristic, sci-fi twist to the vital issue of climate change. Think An Inconvenient Truth but with a personality.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Playground
Category: Expose/Child Prostitution
What: Libby Spears’ important documentary makes plain an uncomfortable fact: that the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation is not just confined to “other parts of the world,” but is every bit as real and prevalent in the United States and Canada.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Beyond the Game
Category: Video Gaming
What: The reality of the video game World of Warcraft boasts more than ten million inhabitants. Now, two of them are locked on a collision course in the virtual universe. In one corner is China’s Sky, a championship video gamer, in the other is Grubby, the Dutch upstart who plays as the villain.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Defamation
Category: Anti-Semitism
What: Is anyone who expresses anti-Zionist opinions necessarily also anti-Semitic? Is anti-Semitism itself still an endemic and dangerous global problem? Has remembering the Holocaust become an unhealthy obsession, perhaps with a hidden agenda?
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Broke
Category: Personal Profile
What: For the down-and-out residents of Edmonton’s grim and unforgiving inner city, pawnbroker David Woolfson is a banker of last resort. A grouchy old guy with a mushy heart, he’s been running the store for nearly 16 years.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Cooking History
Category: History
What: Proving the maxim “an army marches on its belly,” the playful Cooking History inventively uses the field kitchen as a prism through which to view 20th century European history.
Watch the TRAILER
Title: Kamui
Category: Fiction
What: There hasn’t been a decent ninja movie for decades, but Sai Yoichi’s adaptation of a story from Shirato Sanpei’s legendary, multi-volume manga Kamui bestrides the entire genre: this is probably the best ninja movie ever made.
Watch the TRAILER
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