“Microcommunities,” Remember ulcers?
a rupture in historical memory
migraine / margarine / imagine
a youngster with an ice cream cone waves
out front a one-family cottage & yells
‘My Dad got a job again!’ / NO VACANCY post
rosily painted financial joys / picture
tents along the Capilano River cave in
after every demolition shacks and floathouses
spring up again amazingly resilient a
Santa Claus scheme from which the City can't
retreat 1/4 of these attic digs w/ insufficient
head-space excessive heat one landlord
turns Spanish-style gas stations into
comfortable cheap bungalows / blueprints
an answer to the lack: in every backyard
discarded trolleys from BC Electric / yeah
known locally as Tom Thumb or Pee Wee houses
like 1937's CLEAN UP, PAINT UP: “Make
A New Home with Fresh Paint!” rise 300%
or picnic in a failed housing development
Other Colours
Other Colours was conceived in response to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s True Colours, a program that offers grants to incentivize homeowners to restore heritage homes to their ‘true’ Victorian, Edwardian and War Time era (1880–1930) colours, with paint swatches such as “Oxford Bluff” and “Edwardian Pewter”. Canada’s colonial history is a violent history that must be questioned, not ceremoniously replicated. The True Colours program has been deployed largely in support of the gentrification of inner city neighbourhoods, particularly those with a history of immigrant struggle where homes were painted colours that represented diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences of the city. 221A led a Research Initiative with 10 contributors who were asked to provide a swatch for an “Other Colours palette” that would offer alternatives to the True Colours program based on the contributors’ lived experience, cultural traditions and artistic practices. Each Other Colours palette selection is detailed by the contributor with an original text or artwork. This collection of short prose, poetry and social history, printed by Brick Press as an Artist’s Book, offers a more pluralistic account of the city’s built environment and identity.
