Christina Battle:
Stolon Mesh Network

Fellow

2020 - 2023

Stolon Mesh is a community mesh network seeded by 221A that offers free wifi to users in Vancouver’s DTES & Chinatown, and beyond. Developed by artist and 221A Fellow Christina Battle in collaboration with a team of researchers, community liaisons and technologists, Stolon Mesh is a growing network infrastructure with the aim of creating a local-first digital commons that will remain just, caring and responsible to others. The network’s first node is located within the x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》garden at 271 Union Street.

The Node Library

Sector R&D

2022 - ongoing

Advancing 221A’s digital strategy into a new cultural infrastructure, 221A and Blockchain@UBC (University of British Columbia) are partnering to establish The Node Library, a new entity for artists and the public sector to access tools and resources needed to onramp onto the next era of the internet (web3).

Zasha Colah:
The Scorched-Earthly

Fellow

November 2020 - May 2023

Zasha Colah researches contemporary collective forms of cultural production and artistic imagination under prolonged militarized situations; and how acts of imagination become collective. She segues between at least two terrains: the region of Northeast India bordering Bangladesh, Myanmar/Burma and China, and the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. These artificially segmented terrains coalesce in this research to perceive the intersections of law, artistic imagination, constitutions, and the infrastructure of disobedient, ungoverned terrains.

Syrus Marcus Ware: No Future, No Cry

Fellow

December 2022 - December 2023

Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier Scholar, visual artist, activist, curator, and educator. Using painting, drawing, textiles, installation, video and performance, Syrus works with and explores social justice frameworks, and Black activist culture.

Cultural Land Trust

Sector R&D

2018 – 2023

221A is supporting the creation of an independent Cultural Land Trust (CLT).  The CLT is a newly incorporated (December 2021) independent non-profit organization that provides a collective response to escalating real estate prices that have placed severe pressure on security of tenure for artists and arts organizations.

Blockchains & Cultural Padlocks

Sector R&D

2019 – 2023

A four-year digital strategy initiative by 221A that drives research and engages civil society with the challenge of developing a digitally cooperative culture through the advancement of blockchain technologies across cultural, educational and non-profit sectors. The values-led Blockchains & Cultural Padlocks digital strategy works towards recommoning land, data and objects.

Living Description

Commission

2021 - 2022

Living Description is an education initiative convened by artist Aislinn Thomas that conceptualizes access not as an accommodation, but as a relational process of shared sense-making. Beginning with a series of alt-text and visual description workshops led by Aislinn Thomas and Ramya Amuthan in 2021, the project culminates in the launch of 1-833-SEMI-PUB: a toll-free listening space featuring six commissioned audio descriptions that offer multiple non-visual ways to experience the x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》garden as a living system.

Protected: x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》 Community Pollinators Program

Commission

The Community Pollinators Program is a long-term education initiative supporting and celebrating the ongoing stewardship of the x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》garden by an Indigenous and racialized young cohort. The program is currently based out of the Indigenous permaculture garden at 221A’s Semi-Public 半公開 site located at 271 Union St. in Chinatown/DTES/historic Hogan’s Alley on xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations lands.

countermap.land

Sector R&D

August 2020 -->

This crowd-sourced project, led by The Tkaronto chapter of  The Architecture Lobby, locates tangible spaces and objects within the territory known as Canada, represented by figures and events – be they political, social, economic, or otherwise – that have contributed to the dispossession of life, memory, territory, and resources of BIPOC and Queer communities, both past and present.

DOMA

Fellow

2020 – 2022

DOMA is a nonprofit organization that is developing a distributed housing platform intended to bring renters towards ownership structures through the digital token economy, by creating a network of properties across several cities. DOMA leverages the principles of the new token economy to support a model of networked home ownership and it enables a fairer distribution of value for urban living.

Acupressure Path 足部指壓徑

Commission

2021

“No Pressure” Acupressure Path 足部指壓徑 is a public reflexology footpath conceived by Community Pollinator Oliver Barnes and collectively designed, hand-built and installed with community members at the x̱aw̓s shew̓áy̓ New Growth《新生林》garden in Chinatown/DTES.

Fellows Archive

Research Initiatives Archive

825

Studios

(2022–2082)
825 Pacific
Studios

Located in Vancouver’s downtown south, 825 Pacific includes 24 units of non-market work spaces suitable for low-intensity material production (zoned for Class A artist studios) and non-profit administrative spaces. The building is owned by the City of Vancouver and operated by 221A on a 60-year lease agreement.

222

Studios

(2011–)
222 E Georgia Street
Artist Studios

222 is a 8,000ft² property leased from the Yee Fung Toy Society of Canada, a Chinese benevolent association established in 1904. Since 2011, the 222 E Georgia St property has been used by 221A as a space for collective art production and presentation.

187

Housing

(2021–2081)
187 E 3rd Street
Artist Housing

Located in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, 187 E 3rd features 30 non-market housing units for low and modest income artists and their families. The building is owned by the City of Vancouver and operated by 221A Artist Housing Society in collaboration with the Community Land Trust.

1265

Studios

(2019–2039)
1265 Howe Street
Subsidized Artist Studios

1265 Howe Street is an approximately 10,800ft² purpose-built artist production facility leased by 221A starting in Autumn 2019. The facility is managed based on a cost-recovery model that will set rental rates for artist studios according to the overall cost of operating the facility.

236

Studios

(2018–)
236 E Pender Street
Artist Studios

236 is a 9,000ft² property located at 236 E Pender St that provides space for the production and presentation of art.

1654

Studios

2015-Present
1654 Franklin St.

1654 is a 21,515ft² industrial property with 25 artist studios ranging from 170 to 1,850 square feet.  The tenant community includes non-profit cultural organizations, small businesses, and an intergenerational mix of artists. The building is used for a variety of material practices including ceramicists, painters, filmmakers, designers and fabricators. Prior to 221A’s occupancy in 2015, the building was used by Bombast Furniture, where it produced furniture for two decades.

Semi-Public 半公開

Program

(2014–2024)
271 Union Street

Semi-Public 半公開 is a 3,000ft² public art site located at 271 Union Street in Chinatown, Vancouver. Semi-Public 半公開’s programming is informed by the contested spatial politics of its location, and hosts commissions, installations, and processes by artists

Pollyanna 圖書館 Library

Program

(2017–2020)
Closed Until Further Notice

Pollyanna 圖書館 Library operated at 221 E. Georgia from Fall 2017 to Spring 2020. It collected print material, audio, videos, objects, and artworks acquired by the Fellows and Research Initiatives of 221A. For the time being, 221A’s library is not operational because of the questionable safety of the building resulting from neglected maintenance issues by the landowner.