Art installation aims to heal the divide between DTES and Downtown

Located at 250 West Pender Street, the new art project produced by the Vancouver Biennale aims to provoke questions about the divide between the Downtown East Side and the commercial and financial districts that border it.

Hanging on the façade of Vancouver Community College, the art’s location “highlights the glaring economic disparity between neighborhoods and addresses the socio-economic, political and cultural points of disconnect,” according to the Vancouver Biennale.

The piece, titled ‘let’s heal the divide’, is by Toni Latour, a queer feminist artist based in East Vancouver, and was supported by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and Kwantlen University funding. Latour has worked with the Vancouver Biennale before with another piece located on the Canada Line in Richmond.

“We have Ai Weiwei’s F Grass, which is a commentary about the individual and collective acts against systemic censorship in China, and now this work has us thinking about divisiveness right here in our own backyard. It’s a call to action to our elected government, spiritual leaders, the business community, educators and ultimately all of us as individual citizens to come together as neighbours and lead social change. Our exhibition is heavily inspired by Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream that together we rise up and take action for justice, equality and freedom for all,” – President and Artistic Director, Barrie Mowatt

The Vancouver Biennale is a non-profit charitable organization that celebrates art in public space.

Image: Karm Sumal / Vancity Buzz