Our Community Story
Sponsor: Hastings Community Association, Media Un-Defined Collective, Kiwassa Neighbourhood House - Hastings Community Centre
Our Community Story is a community public art project that will engage youth and elders in the Hastings/Sunrise Neighbourhood in an oral history process. Through artistic processes youth will recover and document what remains of the area’s living history: the history remembered by the community’s inhabitants.
The intent of Our Community Story is to engage a diverse group of youth from the Hastings/Sunrise Neighbourhood. A core team of 5-6 youth will be involved throughout the duration of the project. A wide range of outreach methods and channels are being used to reach out to youth from diverse backgrounds, as well as those not currently active in the community.
A team of 5-6 youth participants (ages 16-20) will participate in a series of workshops to further develop their communication and leadership skills. These youth will then work with elders in the community to gather stories and archival images relating to the development of the neighbourhood. Participants will identify historical sites within the neighbourhood as well as significant historical events that have been experienced by community residents and that have shaped the current community.
Conceptually, the artworks will resemble jukeboxes. They will engage audience members by inviting them to listen to sound clips of stories as told by senior community residents while viewing archival photographs of the neighbourhood.
Community Markers
A selection of the stories and images collected in Phase One will be the bases in the development of a series of approximately 20 community markers. A transfer, containing historical photo-imagery and anecdotal text, will be applied to each marker. Each marker will include a historical photo-image of the selected site, and a short anecdote or excerpt as told by a senior resident about the site area.
Our Community Story brings to light to living history of East Vancouver’s Hastings/Sunrise neighbourhood, one of the city’s earliest established neighbourhoods. There is little public acknowledgment of the historical significance of this area. Our Community Story will recover and document what remains of the area’s living history, making it accessible to the wider community as well as to future generations.
Project Goals
Project goals include connecting youth and elders in the community through the sharing of stories, providing youth with communication, leadership skills and hands on technical skills in a variety of mediums, creating meaningful employment opportunities for youth in the arts, and creating mentorship relationships between youth and emerging artists.
Contact Information
- Hastings Community Association
Contact: Rolf Tevely
604.718.6222
- Media Un-Defined Collective
Contact: Maya Ersan
604.733.3722
- Youth Representative
Contact: Rachael
» Visit the “Our Community Story” website:
http://www.mediaundefined.ca
» Read a story about "Our Community Story"
» See a video about "Our Community Story"
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