Bite the Hand That Feeds

Notes on gentrification, idealism, and collective reckoning

Words by Brit Bachmann

At five minutes before the event was scheduled to begin, 221A gallery had already reached capacity, with close to 70 people perched on stools, seated cross-legged between shelves, and lining the walls. The room was oddly tense, and when the organizers approached the podium, the audience gave their full attention.

Bite the Hand That Feeds was conceived as a catch-all event with some specific objectives: to give artists and art workers across disciplines the soapbox to speak candidly about their struggles in Vancouver, with the ultimate goal of having people realize the importance of supporting anti-gentrification causes and advocating for social housing.

The event was organized for February 28 by W.W.A.S.—a research collective composed of Josh Gabert-Doyon, Gabi Dao, Byron Peters, and myself—along with Pollyanna librarian Vincent Tao. W.W.A.S., an undetermined acronym that has stood for the “Woodward’s Amateur Society and Woodward’s Anti-Capitalist Society” in the past, was formed as part of Gabert-Doyon’s Notes On Permanent Education fellowship at 221A.

The objectives of Bite the Hand That Feeds spoke to our idealism as organizers, without accounting for our limitations as hosts: our goals were only partially achieved.

The W.W.A.S. collective’s initial focus was to create a comprehensive timeline of Woodward’s, an urban block at the intersection of Hastings and Abbott, between Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Gastown, that once housed the Woodward’s Department Store. When Woodward’s went bankrupt in 1993 and the building became vacant, advocates in the Downtown Eastside pushed for social housing. W.W.A.S.’s research paid particular attention to this struggle, which included the illegal occupation known as Woodsquat in 2002, and the site’s eventual redevelopment as a commercial/residential project by Westbank Corporation completed in 2010.

Our document gathering coincided with Westbank’s Fight for Beauty campaign in Fall 2017, a campaign that, frankly, pissed us off. W.W.A.S.’s research—including department store nostalgia, City of Vancouver archives, reprinted handbills and zines, oral histories from community organizers and newspaper clippings dating back to the early 90s—clearly maps the accelerated gentrification and displacement of Downtown Eastside residents following Westbank’s redevelopment of the Woodward’s complex. It is anything but beautiful. Westbank’s Fight for Beauty was an attempt at rebranding, to go from real estate developers to “culture company,” and it pushed our project in a radical direction. We organized an “alternative tour” of Fight for Beauty in December, where a dozen artists and activists gave speeches that described the community opposition to Westbank’s most prominent developments. Following that action, we wrote an open letter for artists and art workers to disavow Westbank projects across Canada, in solidarity with the communities displaced by their luxury condo developments.

Not everyone liked the letter. So, W.W.A.S. wanted to make public the conversations about developer-funded art that we were having in private, hence Bite the Hand That Feeds. The problem with our open letter, and the event itself, was summarized by the first artist to speak, Rebecca Brewer: “Some people are not here who should be, and it has to do with the shame.” Brewer explained that talking frankly about developer money requires artists to confront the shame associated with accepting it, and that’s not easy to do publicly.

Arts organizations are so underfunded that many have accepted developer support in the form of sponsorships or Community Amenity Contributions (CACs) allocated by the City of Vancouver. Although specific statistics are not available, the 2016 annual report shows that Community Facilities (including cultural facilities) and Parks and Open Spaces (including public art) received a combined $44 million through CACs. In Vancouver, we also see developers fund major arts institutions, epitomized in the new campus for the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, which includes the Chip and Shannon Wilson Plaza (Low Tide Properties, Lululemon), Ian Gillespie Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media (Westbank), Audain Faculty of Art (Polygon Homes), Reliance Theatre (Reliance Properties), and Rennie Hall (Rennie Group).

In the absence of other funding, developers have become crucial. Although most developer-funded art projects are required by the City of Vancouver as a condition of property rezoning, they are spun as cultural philanthropy. Developers brand themselves as supporters of the arts, all the while building luxury developments that push many artists out of their homes and studio spaces. More importantly, developer-driven gentrification displaces longtime residents, who are often low-income and from marginalized communities. In the case of Vancouver, these developments are also taking place on stolen, unceded Coast Salish Territory.

This is where the question of accepting developer money gets more complicated for everyone, because it forces people to evaluate their own privilege and social responsibility, to weigh personal needs against community interests.

As a moderator sitting at the front, I could see people’s body language change as this reality started to sink in. The energy of the room shifted noticeably following a powerful speech by Sydney Ball (Vancouver Tenants Union, The Mainlander, CiTR/Discorder), who addressed how developers take credit for artists and art spaces, spinning the situation thus: “It’s not that artists are subject to being used as tools for gentrification, but their very existence in gentrified spaces is proof that capital is succeeding, and is producing culture, and is good for community.”

Bite the Hand That Feeds attracted artists, writers, gallery administrators and preparators, event organizers, activists, and even a City of Vancouver employee, but the room seemed to divide into three dominant archetypes: those who prioritize fights for social housing before everything else, artists who want secure studio spaces in gentrified neighbourhoods, and art-based entrepreneurs who may not necessarily consider connections between developers, artwashing, and unaffordability.

Among the latter group, one of the most vocal was Vancouver Mural Festival’s Adrian Sinclair, who argued that artists could show solidarity with affordable housing initiatives by demanding lower property taxes instead of fixating on the motives of developers and the organizations who work with them. Sinclair, whose festival was repeatedly named as an example of artwashing in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, found himself having to defend the Vancouver Mural Festival and like-minded groups. “I just want everyone to work together,” he said, “and not be too finger-pointy.”

After three exhaustive hours without a break, Bite the Hand That Feeds wrapped up without discussing strategies for moving forward. W.W.A.S.’s intention was to have people discover their common ground, to want to help each other, and to realize that helping each other meant checking individual privilege and keeping developers out of sensitive neighbourhoods. Though this may have been achieved on a small scale, in conversations between those who lingered after the event, the lasting impact of Bite the Hand That Feeds is inconclusive.

However, this event accomplished something essential: it made apparent the ideologies and values that divide Vancouver’s arts community.

It’s a start.