This month Miss604 is proud to sponsor Workout for Women’s Day (March 1-8), the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre Herstory in Focus Gala (March 10), Spring Break at Burnaby Village Museum (March 15-25) and the and Portobello West Spring Market (March 19-20). Find these activities and more March events happening around Metro Vancouver listed below:
Global Pandemic,by fine art photographer Michelle Leone Huisman, is a statement on two pandemics we are currently facing: COVID-19 and a second more insidious accumulation of waste produced in response. It will be on display at the Dal Schindell Gallery this month.
Michelle Leone Huisman – Global Pandemic Art Exhibition
When: March 2 to April 10, 2022
Where: Dal Schindell Gallery(5800 University Blvd, Vancouver)
Admission: There is no charge to attend the exhibition
In the fall of 2020, the world used 129 billion disposable plastic masks every month, or three million masks per minute (source: World Economic Forum).Pairing the darker side of these two pandemics with playful childhood themes, Global Pandemic hopes to illuminate the collective consciousness that links the health of our planet with thewell-beingof our children, while remembering the folklore produced in previous times of societal distress.
“Over the past year, I have (safely) collected only some of the masks that I have seen on the streets and sidewalks. They are everywhere! Some are probably ones that people have lost, though I suspect many of them are ones that people have just thrown into the street. While discovering more children’s masks on the streets and sidewalks in the spring of 2021, inspiration struck. I found myself contemplating the hopeful, the playful, and rejuvenating side of springtime contrasting against the scourge of this pandemic waste – discarded children’s masks nestled amongst a patch of daisies, a bunch of buttercups, a bed of grass.” – Michelle Leone Huisman
Michelle Leone Huisman is a fine art photographer, mother of two, and community advocate. She is a graduate of Ryerson University Bachelor of Photo Arts (Stills) with honours (1995/96), and Emily Carr University of Art + Design Photographic Arts (2009-2010). After graduating from Ryerson she traveled to Nepal, Laos, Thailand , and all over Europe. These travels helped shape her artistic vision and added to her drive to support her community. In 2021 Michelle toured her photographic exhibition An Unexpected Collection, featuringphotographs of wooden spoons broken during the banging of pots for the 7PM cheer for first responders.
The photographs of Global Pandemic (and An Unexpected Collection) are printed using a 19th Century technique called tri-colour bichromate gum over palladium. This process produces work that will stand the test of time (this technique is reputed to maintain its quality for more than 500 years). The enduring quality of the print ensures they can be passed down to generations to come. The paper is hand-brushed with a specific chemistry of palladium and ferric oxalate and set to dry in low light conditions. Fixing the negative to the dried substrate, it is then exposed with the image to UV light in a burner. The metal-halide screen exposure system vacuums the print and negative together to create a very close contact during exposure that is important for highly detailed artwork. The paper is then put into three different stop baths of at least ten minutes each. This hand-painted application process is then repeated for each pigment layer over the palladium (yellow, magenta, then cyan) and can be repeated a virtually unlimited number of times to create the desired effect. No two images are alike despite starting with the same negative. Each one-of-a-kind image can take up to five days or more to process.
An Artist Reception will take place on March 3rd at 6:00pm and an Artist Talk on April 7th at 6:00pm.
If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you’ll see how excited I have been to experience the Winter Arts Hub in front of the art gallery. This is a part of Winter Arts Fest (presented by the Vancouver Mural Festival) and it features several AR art installations all around Downtown Vancouver, along with the free entertainment and performances at the hub – and it ends on Sunday! I love that there is so much to do around the city right now, with even more on the horizon. For now, you can find this and many more things to do around Metro Vancouver this weekend listed below:
What started as a collaboration for International Women’s Day four years ago has turned into a weeklong celebration of movement that has raised over $60,000 for women’s causes in BC. In 2022, Workout for Women’s Day organizers Shana Alexander, Andi Davis, and Danya Rogen are hosting their biggest campaign yet in 2022, with over 40 instructors donating their time to host over 40 drop-in sessions and classes to raise funds for Battered Women’s Support Services (“BWSS”), Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (“VWHC”), and WISH Drop In-Centre (“WISH”).
Organizers Danya Rogen (top), Andi Davis (bottom left), and Shana Alexander (bottom right)
I had a chance to catch up with Davis and Rogen to learn more about their initiative and how self-identifying girls and women, and gender-expansive people can participate.
A new development proposal has been launched for the Hudson’s Bay Building in Downtown Vancouver on Georgia and Granville. Under the proposal, the century-old heritage exterior of the Bay Building would be retained, while introducing a one million square foot office tower, a newly reimagined retail space and a new Green Mobility transportation hub at the core of the city’s central business district. The Hudson’s Bay retail store would remain in downtown Vancouver as part of the new mixed-used redevelopment.
New Proposal for the Hudson’s Bay Building in Downtown Vancouver
The building at 674 Granville Street rests on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. The Partners (Hudson’s Bay Company and RioCan Real Estate Trust) are committed to working with local First Nations for their direct involvement in the project and to share in the community benefits that will flow from such a major development.
Streetworks Development, the real estate development arm of HBC Properties and Investments, is leading the revitalization of the Bay Building as well as a variety of HBC’s other real estate assets.
Total retail space in the Bay Building will be about 350,000 square feet. A new 12-storey tower will be built above the existing store, providing one million square feet of new office space capable of accommodating 5,000 new employees in Vancouver’s central business district. With large floorplates of up to 61,000 square feet, the scale and efficiency of this development is typical of the kind of office space sought by large tech sector tenants. A rooftop garden and internal multi-level atriums are also planned for use by tenants in the new building.
The project will benefit from the store’s pre-existing, strong pedestrian traffic flows to and from TransLink’s Granville SkyTrain station and the heavily-used major bus stops right outside the store.
The reconfiguration includes improved access from the building to the Granville SkyTrain station, the Vancouver-City Centre Canada Line station, local bus routes, a new underground indoor bike hub able to store up to 1,500 bicycles, and new public pedestrian walkways will provide covered access linking the Bay Building, its new office space, surrounding business, and shopping areas downtown.
1935 – Hudson’s Bay Store. Vancouver Archives item # Bu P217.
The building is listed in the Vancouver Heritage Register and features a century-old terra cotta exterior which will be preserved in respect of the importance the Bay Building has held in the history and development of downtown Vancouver.
Redevelopment plans for the Bay Building were announced today to inform local residents in advance of Streetworks Development’s application for rezoning and a Heritage Revitalization Agreement to be submitted in coming weeks to the City of Vancouver. Processing this application may take up to a year, or more, and will include public engagement opportunities hosted by the city. Once this is approved, an application will be submitted for a development permit and subsequent building permit, with construction potentially starting as early as 2024.
