I’ve been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver) this summer, which puts great emphasis on how food — specifically local in the case of this book — brings people together, in celebration and as part of their culture. With that in mind, I’m pleased to tell you about an upcoming, worldwide event that uses the occasion of dinner toward making positive change. (Two of my favourite things in one — how could I resist?)
The Feast Worldwide Vancouver
Saturday, October 18th
Groundswell Cafe & Learning Space
The Feast Worldwide is a day of global dinner parties in 40+ cities across 6 continents. The goal? To spark collaboration that drives local entrepreneurs and social initiatives forward.
On October 18, we’re inviting Vancouver to explore the global theme of progression through food and sharing. Join us in envisioning, “A world where growing and eating healthy food connects people.”
The idea is simple. Come for an interactive dinner that explores connections between food, community, technology, sustainability, business, health, design, and more! We’re inviting incredible entrepreneurs to share their work to inspire greater discovery and ideas. Let’s sit together over dinner — and instead of talking about problems, talk about ways to support each other, collaborate, and make things work better.
Register at Eventbrite and follow the Feast on Facebook for updates.
Gather Round Roundabout at St George St at East 10th Ave. Image from Google Streetview.
A few years ago I wrote about a Mark Lakeman event, which I did not attend, so my interest was piqued when a friend of mine mentioned an upcoming event with Lakeman’s name on it.
“Cracks in the pavement: Placemaking and the remaking of the modern city with Mark Lakeman” (tickets still available at Eventbrite) will be Lakeman’s public talk this Friday evening “on Placemaking and Redesigning The Commons” ahead of a 9-month course on the subject.
Placemaking, the creative reclamation of public space was the brainchild of Mark, an urban designer, and his neighbours in 1996 when they transformed their own intersection into a place for community gatherings and interaction — starting a mini revolution in Portland, OR that has spread throughout the city and inspired the creation of City Repair, an organization that engages citzens in transforming places. (Read more.)
Continue reading What is placemaking anyway? »
I volunteer my time and design skills to an awesome burgeoning group called Changemakers Vancouver, which is “a network of people who want to learn, share, and act so to make the world a better place.” On February 13th, we’re teaming up with Late Nite Art for an evening around what insights we can gain when we engage our creativity.
Late Nite Art is a facilitated workshop that brings community together to collaboratively explore thought-provoking ideas and issues through visual arts. We achieve this by combining fresh local food, gratuitous beats, and explorative artmaking in one tasty package.
You definitely don’t have to be artistic to participate. In fact, I think the more diverse a crowd we have, the more interesting and fun our evening and outcomes will be!
Really good food is included in your $35 ticket, which you should get today since capacity is limited.
See you there!
PRACTIVISM 6
Friday, November 29th, 2013
6pm – 10pm at The Ironworks
If you’ve attended any of the previous Practivism speaker events, you probably don’t need convincing to attend this one. Now in its sixth year, the annual event brings change-making creatives from Vancouver and beyond to talk about their projects and the designer’s role in influencing change, whether it be social, environmental or in our practice. This year the keynote speaker is artist and educator Jer Thorp. “Coming from a background in genetics, his digital art practice explores the many-folded boundaries between science, data, art, and culture.”
Our 6th annual Practivism event will explore the opportunities that lay in front of each of us within the vast amount of data we pass by on a daily basis. A panel discussion with Alex Beim, Casey Hrynkow, and Eric Karjaluoto, moderated by Amanda Gibbs will further explore the possibilities and challenge individuals to take action — to envision and mobilize a better future.
The event has grown a lot since its sustainability-focussed beginnings. I’m looking forward to seeing what Thorp offers the event and audience on November 29th.
Get your tickets online now. Practivism sold out last year!
See you there.
I usually spend November 16th with my youngest niece for her birthday — she’s turning eight. But this year, I’ll be standing up for her future at what I hope will be the biggest national rally Canada has ever seen.
Over 100 communities from Victoria to Nunavut to Halifax have signed up for Defend Our Climate, Defend Our Communities events to “help build a united wall of opposition to dangerous pipelines, reckless tar sands expansion and runaway climate change.”
At rallies in Vancouver and other BC communities, opposition to pipelines — Enbridge’s Northern Gateway in particular — will be a major force. The event is happening on the heels of BC and Alberta’s premiers agreeing on a “framework” for moving the Northern Gateway project forward, in spite of mass (in fact, majority) opposition among citizens and a clear lack of answers on whether Christy Clark’s five criteria were met, after she earlier rejected the pipeline based on those criteria.
The timing will only add more fuel to the fire as we decide we’ve had enough of being ignored by our government leaders. I look forward to standing up with my fellow Canadians from coast to coast to coast in support of a clean energy economy, action on climate change, and renewed democracy.
Please join me on November 16th in your community to defend our climate, defend our communities. Find and RSVP to your local event, join the conversation on Facebook, and most of all, invite your friends!
I’m really proud to be contributing my design expertise to a very talented national team that has been working hard on this since long before I joined. Please do share our articles and images on social media to spread the word and, if you can, a little love, too. See you on the 16th.
British Columbians are waging a battle against two pipelines and a prospective future that puts at risk much of what we hold dear. There is a huge opportunity in this crisis, however, to supercharge our people power and fight not just for our rights, the environment, and democracy in BC, but to impact the course of future energy use in Canada and abroad.
Especially with the upcoming provincial election, the time is now to get British Columbians talking seriously about a clean energy direction for the future that helps us avoid oil sands expansion and a six-degree increase in global average temperature.
To help facilitate that, an amazing panel of speakers will be heading the West Coast Oil Pipeline Summit and gala dinner on April 19th. Amongst them, Mayor Gregor Robertson whose team at the City of Vancouver has been very outspoken against Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and tanker expansion plans; Tzeporah Berman, environmental activist; City of Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan; and Chief Justin George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver, who are directly across from the pipeline terminus at the Chevron refinery in Burnaby.
Say yes to beautiful BC. Say no to Kinder Morgan and oil sands expansion.
West Coast Oil Pipeline Summit & Gala Dinner
April 19th, 3pm to midnight
Sheraton Wall Centre, Vancouver
More info and registration at 2ggroup.ca.
The environmental film series at the annual Vancouver International Film Festival appears to have blossomed this year with over a dozen films dealing with issues ranging from food waste and sustainable seafood to climate change and the tar sands.
Some of them are surprising for their genre: Burning Ice brings artists, musicians and poets to the Arctic, and People of a Feather takes us intimately into the lives of Inuit whose very existence depends on the down of eider ducks.
Premiering on Tuesday is a film about Canada’s energy use by local filmmaker Charles Wilkinson and produced by his partner, artist Tina Schliessler. I’m particularly excited to see this one as I’ve known the family since my childhood. Peace Out features interviews with both opponents and proponents of our current destructive energy systems, and aerial footage of the tar sands in Alberta, a project so massive it can be seen from space. Seen from a plane, it’s utterly heartbreaking. Ultimately, we all need to use less energy.
Continue reading Compelling environmental films bloom at VIFF »
You might expect a film about a Vancouver couple who spend a year almost zero-waste and without buying any stuff to be a tale of unimaginable hardship and sacrifice. Indeed, the prospects of using the same toothbrush for 365 days, not replacing worn-out clothing, or making crackers from scratch are daunting but The Clean Bin Project‘s Jen and Grant take a delighted, energetic approach akin to Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon’s The 100-Mile Diet, but on the screen. The project was for them a competition for who could produce the least amount of garbage by year’s end (I won’t tell you who won), and involved learning about plastics, asking for their cheese unwrapped in their reusable container, and making the most of an old razor. Their enthusiasm was infectious. The 76-minute film is merely a glimpse at an entire year, but if it suggests anything about the 525,600 minutes they spent saving the planet, I think they enjoyed most of them.
Their artistically delicious film intersperses their own narrative of discovery — and occasional humourous disappointment — with the broader view of our consumption-based lifestyle and its consequences: successful community recycling initiatives; the Pacific Garbage Patch (which is twice the size of Texas); albatross death by plastic; landfills; and incomprehensibly large volumes of disposable stuff as depicted by Seattle artist Chris Jordan.
Continue reading Talking trash: Projecting Change Film Fest opens May 26, and plastic is a Texas-sized problem »
Friday, April 22nd isn’t just Good Friday. It’s also Earth Day, and in celebration, Vancouver’s youth have organized a parade and festival! I’ll be there with my bicycle and as many dorky treehugging pins as I can dig up. (Find me if you’d like a Vote Environment button with Suzuki’s retro face on it!)
Coincidentally, this is the 41st Earth Day and, on May 2nd, Canada has its 41st federal election. Before you head to the polls as early as this weekend — because you ARE voting (or if you’re a minor, telling your parents to vote), right? — think about how important it is to you to have clean air, clean water and healthy food to eat. Think about what kind of world today’s youth will be facing in the future if climate change isn’t mitigated today, if oil spills continue, and if our precious salmon fail to thrive. If you’re a youth yourself, what do you want the world to look like? We can take many actions ourselves, but Canadians understand the government wields the biggest power to make sweeping changes in the areas where consumers have little influence. And the Canadian government needs to know that we care about our environment.
Continue reading Join the Earth Day Parade and then get your vote on »
The garden is greener on the other side of the road. (Photo by
urbanwild via Flickr)
I thought I’d alert you dreamers, makers and thinkers to some upcoming events in Vancouver.
This should be an interesting month, with David Owen speaking Thursday on why Manhattan is the greenest city, and if Portland isn’t, Mark Lakeman is sure to prove they’re ready to take the lead.
“Eco-Dreaming Vancouver!” with Mark Lakeman, City Repair Co-Founder, Portland
Friday, March 25, 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Join us for Mark’s “The Village Lives” presentation on how Portland is rapidly becoming the USA’s leading green city!
Saturday, March 26, 10am – 5pm
Join us for a day of Collaborative and City Repair Games facilitated by Mark Lakeman, Power of Hope and Village Vancouver. We will spend the day building community, having fun, and learning how to work as “villages” to ecologically re-design and retrofit our neighbourhoods. Registration 9:30 am. Please RSVP for Saturday workshops to: sara[at]powerofhope.org
Location: W2 Storyeum, 151 West Cordova
Cash bar and lunch service available by W2 Catering.
More information and register by donation at ecodreamingvancouver.eventbrite.com
Thanks to Sara Dent.
Continue reading Upcoming: Mark Lakeman, Natalie Purschwitz and SUSTAIN: Vancouver »
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