Presentation
Saturday November 8, 4pm – 6pm
Gallery Gachet, 88 E. Cordova
Free
The Right to Remain Community Fair has been the main focus of the Revitalizing Japantown? community research project since June, uncovering the Human Rights history of the Downtown Eastside and creating art and performance with current residents to express their Right to Remain in a rapidly changing DTES. There will be workshop artwork on display, a slideshow and Q & A with the participating artists. Project members Greg Masuda (filmmaker), Kristin Lantz (Gallery Gachet) and Beth Carter (Nikkei National Museum) will also discuss their role in this exciting arts-based community research project-in-progress. Everyone welcome!
‘Revitalizing Japantown?’ A Unifying Exploration of Human Rights, Branding and Place.
Colonized, racialized, stigmatized and gentrified – Downtown Eastside residents have continuously resisted Human Rights violations by rallying for social justice.
Understanding and strengthening the common links between Human Rights struggles past and present tells those who want to “revitalize” the neighbourhood that the DTES is not just a planners’ grid of buildings, streets and parks. It is its people, and the people of the DTES do not need to be “revitalized” because they are already “vital.”
“Revitalizing Japantown?” (2012-2015) is a community research project with DTES organizations, artists and researchers who are working to reconnect and re-enliven the Human Rights history of the DTES across cultures, concerns and periods in history.
Currently working with a fantastic team of artist residents of the DTES as The Right to Remain Community Fair we want to ensure that the history of the DTES can continue to teach Canadians about our Human Rights legacy and present-day challenges, including Human Rights issues taking place around housing, health, food, and the right to the city.
Click HERE to read “The Right to REMAIN in Vancouver’s Nihonmachi/Downtown Eastside” by Jeff Masuda with Aaron Franks, for The Bulletin: a journal of Japanese Canadian community, history + culture, March 2014.