Down and in on the Eastside - Canadian Architecture News

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Down and in on the Eastside

Archiseek / Canada / News / 2006 / December 8

Earlier this decade, things got so bad on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that it started to be abandoned even by artists -- a group that Statistics Canada data indicates is amongst the poorest residents in Canada's poorest postal code area. The nadir was reached when a leading-edge art presentation centre -- the Or Gallery -- left its home in the 100 block of West Hastings for inferior new quarters in Yaletown, patrons scared away by open drug dealing out front, and staff frustrated by repeated burglaries inside. One artist who has never abandoned the Downtown Eastside is photographer and installation artist Stan Douglas. With family roots on Vancouver's eastside, he has long located the studio where he produces his globally acclaimed artworks in the neighbourhood. Mr. Douglas made the block where the Or Gallery used to sit world-famous through a self-explanatory street-front photo-montage and related book, Every Building on 100 West Hastings.

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