The Eastside Arts Society welcomes art enthusiasts to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the beloved Eastside Culture Crawl and the indelible impact the event has made on the Eastside Arts District community over the past 25 years. The 25th annual Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Art, Design & Craft Festival will take place in person and online over two consecutive weekends, November 12-14 (preview by appointment) and November 18-21, 2021, in strict compliance with public health protocols. Featuring a new artist livestream schedule, a dedicated appointment-based preview weekend, and the Culture Crawl’s traditional open studio series, the event’s landmark edition offers arts patrons an enhanced opportunity to fully customize their Culture Crawl experience and visit the studios of 400+ artists.
“As we look back on the past 25 years of the Eastside Culture Crawl, we are incredibly proud of the strong, resilient, and inspiring visual arts community we have helped to support. Through our annual Culture Crawl celebration, we have not only boosted the careers and livelihoods of countless artists who enrich our city through creative vitality, but we have provided an essential outlet for the public to experience artistic expression and creative connection,” says Esther Rausenberg, Artistic & Executive Director of the Eastside Arts Society. “The 25th annual Culture Crawl presents a special opportunity to acknowledge, pay tribute to, and showcase the extraordinary talents and accomplishments of the visual arts community, while looking forward to an even brighter future ahead with the development of the Eastside Arts District.”
From our partners:
Solitude by David Tycho
To maximize the Culture Crawl experience and open accessibility for all patrons in Metro Vancouver and beyond, the Eastside Arts Society has created further improvements to its digital presence, including a newly designed and user-friendly website, an artist live stream schedule, appointment booking software, and increased access to artists through 360° virtual studio tours.
For those visitors who wish to attend in-person, the Culture Crawl features two options in 2021. Based on overwhelmingly positive feedback from 2020, when studio appointment bookings were created for the first time, this year’s event will once again provide a preview weekend November 12-14, reserved for appointments only, cultivating an intimate, quality interactive experience for both artists and guests. And for those Culture Crawl enthusiasts wishing for a more traditional event experience, open studios will return for the event’s main weekend November 18-21, offering patrons the exciting and dynamic energy the event is known for.
Daybreak by Taka Sudo
A highlight of Vancouver’s arts and cultural calendar, the Eastside Culture Crawl presents unparalleled access to visual artists practicing a variety of different art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, photography, jewelry, glass art, furniture, and more. Through a wide range of accessible events and activities both in-person and online, art lovers in the Eastside Arts District and beyond are encouraged to explore their creative curiosities and expand their worldviews through art.
Eastside Arts Society’s health and safety protocols — in strict compliance with provincial health orders — can be viewed here.
Culture Crawl goers are invited to supplement their Eastside Culture Crawl experience through a number of feature presentations and exhibitions, including:
PREVIEW EXHIBITION
November 1–30, 2021 (Dates vary depending on venue)
Firehall Arts Centre (280 E Cordova St)
Alternative Creations (1659 Venables St)
The Cultch (ONLINE)
Pendulum Gallery (885 W Georgia St)
Herschel Flagship Store, Infinity Room (349 Water St)
A multi-venue, salon-style curated exhibition, “Surfacing” will feature works from 75 + artists curated by a jury of their peers. The exhibit will explore these challenging times through art created out of moments of frustration, vulnerability, strength, hope, and gratitude. Works in this broad-reaching exhibition include painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, video and other media. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events/surfacing-2021-preview-exhibit.
TAKE FLIGHT VIRTUAL BENEFIT
October 14–November 6, 2021
An online benefit and festival launch event, this year’s event features a silent auction featuring such extraordinary items as Burrowing Owl double magnum, John Fluevog gift card, and art workshops from Culture Crawl artists–as well as the return of the wildly popular Art Roulette. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events/takeflight2021.
TALKING ART
November 9-11, 2021
A curated series of three online artist talks and conversations, moderated by Carlyn Yandle, a former print journalist and artist whose practice includes public art installations, painting, fibre arts and sculpture. Artist talks include “Histories in the making: From research to artwork” with Julie McIntyre, Monique Motut-Firth and Mia Weinberg; “Material matters: Engaging with nature” with Shary Bartlett, Ed Hunt and Robert Morris; “Making for a Living: A peek inside the business side” with Gill Benzion, Jeff Wilson and Arleigh Wood. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events/talking-art-2021.
MOVING ART
November 8, 2021 at 7pm (online premiere)
The 8th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl Film and Video Projection features submissions from eight artists, curated by Kate MacDonald and Esther Rausenberg. As quarters became closer and social connections dissolved, artists looked outward to forge new relationships with their local environments, both urban and wild alike. This year’s selections reflect an ecological aesthetic theory that weighs our inherent love of nature against the tension of human progress to celebrate its tenuous balance in art. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events/moving-art.
Full details of Eastside Culture Crawl events, artists, talks, and locations can be found at
culturecrawl.ca/events.
About the Eastside Arts Society (eastsideartssociety.ca)
The Eastside Arts Society (EAS) is a visual arts organization dedicated to connecting the public with the visual arts. EAS produces the annual Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design and Craft Festival held in November that involves artists on Vancouver’s Eastside opening their studio to the public. The event involves painters, jewellers, sculptors, furniture makers, weavers, potters, printmakers, photographers, and glassblowers; from emerging artists to those internationally established. EAS produces additional programming including Talking Art, juried exhibits, Studio 101 arts programming for inner-city children, and the Moving Art Video series.
In 2021, EAS began a pioneering new initiative: developing an Eastside Arts District (EAD). The EAD will transform the arts and cultural assets in the Eastside from an informal and grassroots network of stakeholders, into a formalized organization with stable funding and secure, long-term facilities for artists and cultural venues. The EAS also produces the CREATE! Arts Festival.
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