The Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival is back for 2021, rebranded as Hot Chocolate Vancouver featuring 39 venues offering up 87 flavours!
Hot Chocolate Vancouver
When: January 16 to February 14, 2021
From the organizers: “When it launched in 2011, Hot Chocolate Vancouver was the first city-wide initiative in the world to use hot chocolate beverage as a way to support small, local business. This January it returns for its 11th year, bigger and better than ever, with Vancouver’s best chocolatiers, pastry shops, bakeries, cafes, gelato and ice cream makers coming together to make the humble hot chocolate hotter than it has ever been before.”
Artigiano‘s Main Street and North Vancouver Edgemont locations will be participating, offering up the following chocolate creations:
Incendiary Orange Explosion Creamy milk chocolate and bright orange, infused with smoke Hand-torched, artisanal marshmallow topper
Mellow Berry Bomb Ruby chocolate and juicy strawberry Ruby chocolate marshmallow “bomb” melts to release silky marshmallows
Artigiano’s Mellow Berry Bomb for Hot Chocolate Vancouver
Beta 5 Chocolates will serve up the Superhalva, collaboration with Superbaba.
A hot milk chocolate flavoured with brown sugar and sesame, topped with milk chocolate cornflake. Served with a halva macaron.
A nostalgic cup of hot chocolate reminiscent of that special treat … After Eights. Topped with Butter’s After Eight Sandwich cookie (chocolate shortbread filled with an After Eight chocolate and dipped in chocolate).
Find these and more delectable drinks at the following locations:
Participating Cafes, Bakeries and More
49th Parallel Coffee + Lucky’s Doughnuts Baker And Table Beaucoup Bakery Bel Cafe Bellaggio Hornby Bellaggio Canada Place Bench Bakehouse Beta 5 Chocolates Bjorn Bar Bakery Butter Baked Goods Cadeaux Bakery Caffe Artigiano Chez Christophe Doughgirls East Van Roasters Everbean Café Fife Bakery Fufú Café Gem Chocolates Giovane Cafe
Glenburn Soda Fountain Honolulu Coffee Kafka’s Coffee Koko Monk Chocolates Koko Monk Hot Chocolate Lounge La Glace Ladurée Mink Chocolates Mon Paris Pâtisserie Nelson The Seagull Pacific Institute Of Culinary Arts Passione Gelato Peaked Pies Sciué Italian Bakery Café Soirette Pastry Boutique Thierry Chocolates Thomas Haas Chocolates Uno Gelato Zimt Chocolates
View the vendor map here, along with a legend to see which are take-out only, limited service, full service, open late, vegan, and more.
Hot Chocolate Contest
You can enter to win a gift certificate from participating chocolate makers and cafes through Instagram. When you visit, snap and share a photo tagging #HCVphotocontest in your caption or tag @hotchocolatefest within the photo. Winners will be drawn on Valentine’s Day.
Three new art exhibitions will open January 19th at Burrard Arts Foundation, a local visual arts nonprofit and gallery, featuring the works of Annie Briard, Sandeep Johal and Josephine Lee.
Burrard Arts Foundation: Annie Briard, Sandeep Johal and Josephine Lee
Where: BAF Gallery (258 East 1st Ave, Vancouver) When: January 19 to March 20, 2021. Tues – Sat, 12:00pm to 5:00pm. Admission: Free
Two of the shows were produced by the latest participants in BAF’s Residency Program, muralist, textile artist and illustrator Sandeep Johal, and photographer, installation and new media artist Annie Briard. During the program, the two artists worked side-by-side in the two studios at BAF’s purpose-designed facility in the False Creek Flats. Also opening is new work from Josephine Lee in BAF’s Garage; this street facing exhibition window displays art to the public 24 hours a day and showcases early-career artists.
Annie Briard’s work can be succinctly defined by two interrelated principles: colour and light. Her new exhibition Within the Eclipse, created in the BAF residency program, is almost minimal, in sharp contrast to the colourful maximalism of her prior, photographic work. Included in the show is a new, light-based sculptural installation that immerses the viewer in Briard’s central themes of perception and subjectivity.
It is within this shadowy realm that Sandeep Johal’s new exhibition, Beast of Burden, brings to light her isolating and arduous journey. A daring exercise in vulnerability and forgiveness, Beast of Burden is an unflinching look at motherhood that urges viewers to recast their gaze.
In /born ignorant in an abyss of light, Josephine Lee has used handblown borosilicate glass, containing glowing, flickering plasma lit up by an electrode, to examine notions of home, toxicity, and nationalism by highlighting the precarity and fragility of her materials. Surrounded by the blown glass and plasma are spherical porcelain vessels. Unique to Korea, the moon jar (dal hang-ari) takes two separately thrown bowls and joins them together to form a discernible seam, each moon jar’s unique characteristics falling on the asymmetrical line of its equator.
A cornerstone of Burrard Arts Foundation programming, the BAF Artist Residency Program offers creative support and professional development to qualified Vancouver-based artists.
The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art presents the Western Canadian premiere of Indigenous History in Colour, a solo exhibition by Luke Parnell. The exhibition is a powerful exploration of the relationship between Northwest Coast Indigenous oral histories, conceptual art, and traditional formline design.
Luke Parnell – Neon Reconciliation Explosion (2020). Acrylic on birch plywood, pine, presswood. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy MKG127.
Indigenous History in Colour by Luke Parnell
When: February 3 to May 9, 2021, Wed – Sun from 11:00am to 5:00pm
A virtual opening celebration, featuring Parnell and curator Beth Carter in conversation, will be hosted via Facebook Live on Tuesday, February 2, 2021 at 6:00pm.
Where: Bill Reid Gallery (639 Hornby St, Vancouver)
Admission: Adults $13; Seniors $10; Students $8; youth $6; Children free. Free admission offered for Indigenous Peoples, Gallery Members, and current SFU students with ID.
Indigenous History in Colour’s multidisciplinary analysis of the shifting perspectives of Northwest Coast art in modern history challenges contemporary discourse on notions of reconciliation and representation today.
“Inspired by oral traditions, history, pop culture, and Bill Reid, Parnell’s playful juxtapositions and bold commentary shine a spotlight on the work still needed to bring about authentic reconciliation for Indigenous peoples,” says Beth Carter, curator of the Bill Reid Gallery.
First shown at MKG127 Gallery in Toronto in July 2020, Indigenous History in Colour centres on the concept of transformation, both as it relates to Indigenous storytelling traditions as well as changing interpretations of Northwest Coast art over time. The West Coast premiere will feature two new large works, eight paintings, and a short film and accompanying totem pole — the latter works added to the exhibition for Parnell’s Bill Reid Gallery debut.
“Research and exploration have become the basis of my artistic practice. In order to understand histories and concepts, in order to explore emotion and contemporary events, I create artworks,” says Parnell. “My artwork asks questions but never answers them.”
The largest work in the exhibition, Neon Reconciliation Explosion (2020), is a collaborative installation that both embraces and questions reconciliation. Parnell created a Northwest Coast housefront with a large butterfly design in Nisga’a style, which was then divided into 44 panels. The squares were painted by 55 community members with bright neon colours, in reflection of their own personal understanding of reconciliation. Parnell’s own panel stands out in contrast — a bare, hollow doorway with carvings of the initials CB and TF, in memory of the lost lives of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine.
Parnell also has a short film Remediation (2018), which delves into the long-lasting implications of the removal of ancient totem poles from Haida Gwaii, as a critical response to a Bill Reid documentary produced in the 1950s. Parnell’s film is a cross-country journey carrying half of one of his own totems back to the coast, where it is then ceremonially burned. The ashes and the remaining half of the totem will also be on display.
About the Artist
Raised in northern BC, Parnell is a contemporary artist and Assistant Professor at OCAD University. He is Wilp Laxgiik Nisga’a from Gingolx on his mother’s side and Haida from Massett on his father’s side. Having apprenticed with a Master Northwest Coast Indigenous carver, he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at OCAD U and a Master of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His artistic practice explores the relationship between Northwest Coast Indigenous oral histories and art, with a focus on transformation narratives. Parnell’s work, which combines both traditional and contemporary symbols, has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada and the Biennial of Contemporary Native Arts in Montreal, among others.
On this day forty years ago (January 12, 1981) the publicly funded educational television network, Knowledge Network, hit the airwaves.
Happy 40th Knowledge Network
“In a media landscape cluttered with sensational content from often-dubious sources, you can always count on Knowledge to provide intelligent programming you can trust. We search the world to bring you programs that inspire, challenge, and delight, free from commercial interruptions.“
Knowledge Network acquires and commissions over 750 hours of original programming per year, with funding from the provincial government and over 40,000 individual donors. It has the most-watched kids programming on weekday mornings and prime time viewing has gained a lot of traction in recent years.
Here are five programs that John and I have really enjoyed over the last year, all available on demand right now when you sign up for free:
Five Shows to Watch Right Now
Search and Rescue North Shore: A five-part Knowledge Original series that follows the heroic members of Canada’s busiest volunteer search and rescue team as they set off by foot and helicopter to rescue people from the rugged wilderness of North Vancouver.
c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city: Directed by Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, the city before the city tells the story of the Musqueam First Nation’s 200-day vigil to halt a Vancouver condo development that unearthed ancestral remains.
Coast: The award-winning series Coast presented by Neil Oliver and a team of experts celebrates the character of the British Isles, exploring secrets and stories about the people, wildlife and its shores. There are also Australia and New Zealand seasons.
Haida Modern: In the 50 years since he carved his first totem pole and saw it raised on Haida Gwaii, Robert Davidson has come to be regarded as one of the world’s foremost modern artists.
Vancouver: No Fixed Address: As housing costs in cities around the world skyrocket, Vancouverites fight to preserve homes as living spaces, not global commodities.
On top of finding Knowledge on your TELUS, Shaw or Bell cable devices, you can also watch anytime, for free, on demand, online (from your smart TV, AppleTV or browser). We’ve watched so many Knowledge Network shows throughout the pandemic in 2020, that we’ve donated to become Knowledge Partners — yes, there is a tote bag option, among several other gifts.
EcoStories Film Camp is an exciting new opportunity, offered by the Stanley Park Ecology Society in collaboration with The Cinematheque, where youth ages 14-17 can explore their reciprocal relationship with nature and make a short film about it.
EcoStories Film Camp
Where: Distanced in person, and virtual When: March 15 to March 26, 2021 Register: Online here. SPES members $430, non-members $470. Bursaries available for Indigenous youth.
Through a variety of nature-based activities, including weaving with plants, youth will learn from diverse knowledge holders about the natural world and the power of story-telling. Experts from The Cinematheque will coach and empower youth to convey these learnings and connections via a short film made on a smartphone.
The format will allow for social distancing while offering campers the opportunity to safely engage with camp leaders and fellow participants. Participants must be comfortable with self-direction for the nature activities, filming, and drop ins to the Stanley Park Ecology Society’s offices at the Dining Pavilion and Nature House, or else have guardians available to assist and supervise. A tentative daily schedule can be found online here.
Participants are welcome to use their own phones/laptops, but will have access to smartphones for filming, basic film equipment, and laptops for editing their work. They will be able to sign out all equipment to use for their filmmaking process.
For more information visit the Stanley Park Ecology Society website.
