Hundreds of Vancouver artists open studios for Eastside Culture Crawl

The Eastside Culture Crawl is back for its 27th year, giving the public access to the work of local artists and their studios around East Vancouver until Sunday.

"There is a great deal of optimism in the air this year," Esther Rausenberg, artistic and executive director of the Eastside Arts Society, said in a press release.

"We've witnessed a great transformation taking place for many of our artists, who are changing directions and exploring new themes and mediums."

Organizers of the event say around 450 local artists — including 60 participating for the first time — will open their doors to the public between Thursday evening and Sunday. 

The society is also hosting the exhibit Out of Control until Nov. 26, featuring the work of 80 selected artists across several galleries: the Cultch, Alternative Creations Gallery, Charles Clark Gallery at Strange Fellows Brewery, and the Pendulum Gallery.

The Eastside Culture Crawl started in 1996 as a festival featuring the open studios of 45 artists, according to Rausenberg.

"I guess it was a heyday for a lot of artists at the time with lots of spaces available for them," Rausenberg told The Early Edition host Stephen Quinn.

Skyrocketing real-estate prices in Vancouver have led to the closures of many studios in the district, she said.

In a 2019 report, the society highlighted the growing number of displaced artists, and estimated about 400,000 square feet of art production space have been lost in the last 10 years. 

More such spaces were lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2021, the White Monkey Design prop shop was forced to vacate its 8,000-square-foot building on Prior Street for the construction of the new St. Paul's Hospital, after being there since 1981.

The following year, more than 30 artists were asked to leave the Old Foundry Building at 1790 Vernon Drive to make way for a new commercial building.

Although some artists produce their work at home, Rausenberg says most artists need a separate space for their studios.

"A lot of these spaces are in two-, three-storey kind of cinder block buildings, and those are coming down as we're seeing higher developments on those buildings," she told CBC News in April.

The society has been actively advocating for policies to protect and expand spaces for artists. In 2021, they established the Eastside Arts District (EAD), an initiative aimed at preserving artist spaces and developing new ones around Columbia Street, 1st Avenue, Victoria Drive and the waterfront.