Vancouver Arts: Thursday morning

We'll be doing some live blogging for the Vancouver Arts Summit. So far, things are humming along swimmingly (how's that for a mixed metaphor?). Diane Ragsdale, our keynote speaker, blew everyone’s mind with her latest version of Surviving the Culture Change. PDF of the speech should available Monday - if you weren't at the Summit, you should absolutely give it a read. It's basically a roadmap for the next fifty years in the cultural sector, and we're providing it to you for free.

As you can see by the low-res iPhone picture (taken at a terrible angle), we were honoured by two songs and dances by members of the Four Host First Nations, and a welcome by Coast Salish elder Barb Charlie. Among her many excellent observations, of particular note was the importance of culture as a way to teach young people about their heritage - something we too often dismiss in contemporary art practice.

Currently, Lori Baxter is presenting the BC Activity Recorder, a tool to record physical activity in British Columbia which could be easily adapted to use for the arts sector. The BC Activity Recorder is a way to help create and manipulate data on how many people in British Columbia are engaging with sports and recreation. This could be a helpful advocacy tool at both a grassroots or policy level; ie, it would be extremely helpful when dealing with MLAs who are for cutting funding for the arts by saying, “well, actually, 23,000 of your constituents are active in the music/art/drama/etc.”

More information about the BC Activity Reporter will be made available in coming days.