If you have a smart phone or iPad, grab it immediately and search through your app function for 'The NUB: Indie Arts Hub.' The first of its kind, the Nub is the face of some of Canada's best arts and culture magazines, including:
-Geist,
Tania Ehret
Tania Ehret recently joined rabble as a contributing editor. She's been involved in all sorts of fun organizing around Vancouver, from participation in the anti-war movement to opposition to the Enbridge Pipeline. She finished Langara College in Peace and Conflict Studies and has had reports published in Socialist Worker. She believes deeply in melding the worlds of social justice and multimedia/arts, making activism accessible to as many people as possible. She's almost always in the mood for a crazy film or a midnight coffee run. Winnipeg's A-Zone: An autonomous success story
I've done some pontificating in the last little while about the importance of alternative community spaces.
I think they are essential because of both their vibrancy and their ability to act as agents for intersecting all sorts of activist organizing. I think we need that epicentre, in order to effectively harness the various webs of struggle and bring to life a culture of organizing that reaches beyond the day to day mundanities.
This isn't to romanticize the concept, stripping it of the blood, sweat and tears it takes to sustain both the energy and the finite resources demanded by it all. It's not easy, but Winnipeg's Albert Street Autonomous Zone collective (A-Zone) has been struggling with this since the 1990s.
From the Waldorf to W2: Vancouver's disappearing arts and community spaces
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I don't know what's going on lately in Vancouver.
It seems that whatever sliver of creative arts and cultural spaces artists and community members manage to sustain eventually falls victim to big business, developers and the City.
It's the W2 centre in the Woodward's building and Waldorf Hotel evictions that are on the docket as of late. And artists and media activists are outraged, rightfully so. But beneath the surface of various spaces trying to make ends meet, there is a pattern of gentrification assailed upon areas often already gentrified.
Culture and condos
Getting together for the holidays: Make use of collective, creative spaces
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Last week, Tania Ehret outlined some alternatives to Christmas as consumerism, providing some holiday solidarity gift ideas. This week, she shares some ideas of collective, creative spaces where you can gather to share the holiday cheer.
The holidays are upon us and many of us are increasingly thrilled about the idea of seeing family and friends and (if possible) relaxing for once. It's that time of the year.
Give the gift of solidarity this season: Alternatives to Christmas as consumerism
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Let's admit it. Christmas shopping can be the worst. Even when you avoid large chains and shopping centres like the plague.
There's something about the obligation this particular holiday -- that, no, not everyone celebrates --has to demonstrate affection in the act of purchase, that's pretty counter to what the guy this holiday supposedly set out to celebrate supposedly spoke about.
Indie Inside features musician and cultural activist Michael Holt
We're proud to re-launch Indie Inside, featuring Michael Holt this month.
Related rabble.ca story:
Vancouver's Rhizome Cafe: An activist living room
What do you do in cafes? Catch-up with old friends? Finish your homework?
Form radical activist movements?
Community organizing doesn't have to take place in cramped office spaces or basement pubs. In fact, if we really want to reclaim public space as a spot in which to congregate and form movements, it's imperative to form inclusive community spaces. And catching up with old friends doesn't have to exist solitary from social justice events. We can be social as we organize. There is beauty in that.
This is the sort of space the Rhizome Cafe is fostering.
Between apathy and activism: In search of the elusive hipster
There's no cultural milieu that resonates more anxiety than all the policing going on around what exactly is a 'hipster.' Their style, their motifs, their beverage preferences; we talk about them like they're not in the room. But they are.
Generally speaking, a hipster -- which I would loosely define as one who engages in an underground image not only for the purpose of standing out, but also to feel a sense of superiority -- is an urban middle-class phenomenon. Emerging in the 1990s, the hipster is known for an enthusiasm for alternative products and strange aesthetics, often developing distaste when these products enter the mainstream.
No tankers, no pipelines: Thousands attend Save the Salish Sea Festival
Summer is winding down and as autumn approaches and the back in school fixation sets in, it's a better time than ever to remind and mobilize British Columbians regarding oil tanker traffic on the coast of B.C. And that is exactly what organizers of the Save the Salish Sea Festival did this last Sunday at Waterfront Park in North Vancouver.
Close to 3,000 people gathered throughout the day to show support for the Coast Salish nations as they stand firmly against oil tanker traffic and the corresponding Kinder Morgan and Enbridge tar sands pipelines proposals.
This festival and concert followed a canoe journey Saturday through waters of the Burrard Inlet where Kinder Morgan hopes to increase oil tanker traffic, organized by the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish nations.
Watching the emotional gladiators: The Real Housewives of Vancouver
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It really must be a hard life to take on the pivotal role of attending dinner parties for the upper crust and colourizing fancy cocktails. Even harder when you're having trouble getting along with associates that television executives have picked out to be your 'friends.'