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Topic: DTES Calendar (Read 178 times)

Addams
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DTES Calendar
« on: Dec 7^th, 2003, 9:27pm »

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Eastendgirl - is this near you? I would like to buy one of the calendars. C

Photos featured in fund-raising Vancouver art calendar

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A fat, sleepy cat behind a barred window. Drug needles on the street. A Bible abandoned in a homeless person's shopping cart.

Those are among the subjects of 40 winning photographs taken on disposable cameras by residents of Canada's poorest neighborhood, with framed prints on sale for $175 (U.S.$133) each at Gallery Gachet Artists Co-Op.

The top 16 are featured in a black-and-white calendar that a legal aid group is offering to residents of the crime-plagued Downtown Eastside at $10 (US $7.60) for resale to the public at twice that price.

The photos were chosen from 2,200 frames after the Pivot Legal Society distributed 110 disposable cameras to low-income residents on Oct. 7, giving them three days to capture images of compassion, joy, struggle, courage, faith and friendship.

Those who shot the pictures in the calendar received cash prizes. Of each framed print that is sold, the photographer receives about $65 (U.S.$49.40) and the rest goes to Pivot, a neighborhood advocacy group.

Kevin Siluch, who took the picture of the needles, said he was trying to capture a spirit others often miss.

"The people who actually live down here and form the community really aren't lost, they really know what they're doing and want to make this community a good place to live," he said. "They have a mission when they wake up every day to make this a better place."

The Downtown Eastside, an area east of downtown, north of Gastown and west of Chinatown, is home to an estimated 5,000 intravenous drug users, rampant prostitution and grinding poverty.

"But I've lived in other parts of the city and oddly enough, this neighborhood is the friendliest," Siluch said.

"When I leave my co-op in the morning and walk down the street, quite often I can go no less than half a block and meet someone I know, say `hello' and have a pleasant, cordial conversation.

"Other parts of the city I've lived in, I've been there two or three years and I never had one conversation with my neighbor, he said.

Ken Joseph said he had sold 20 calendars and hopes the neighborhood can develop other ways for people like himself to earn some money.

"It's like a seed in the ground," Joseph said. "We should have more opportunities like this. In order to succeed in the Downtown Eastside, we've got to work together."

David-Sky Marchant, a member of the co-op, expects the photographs and calendars to continue to sell well.

"You don't need to be titled an artist to portray who you are where you live," Marchant said. "They have a wonderful chance of selling.

"These are very lucid, vivid images of day-to-day life, not just here on the lower eastside but in a thousand cities in a thousand places. Millions of people go through these sorts of emotive experiences these photos capture."

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On the Web: http://pivotlegal.org/calendar/

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Re: DTES Calendar
« Reply #1 on: Dec 8^th, 2003, 11:28am »

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while i had heard about the pictures being taken and had heard that the calender was complete, i had not seen it before this thread! Wink

school and work has been very overwhelming lately, i fear. i was just at the site and it looks freakin amazing. thanks addams.

while it seems like such an amazing project, it has been tauted as another way to exploit the area ~ make a bright calender of pictures taken by poor people of poor people. but from what i just saw, they did a great job of empowering people. i will be on the look out for one of those street vendors this week to buy some for my friends and family.

thanks again addams.

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