Gallery Gachet & The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show

Gallery Gachet & The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show
(Part of the Art-i-Fact: 88 East Cordova Project)
October 26th-November 25th
Opening reception:
Fri Oct 26th, 6 – 9pm
(Join the procession from Oppenheimer Park at 5pm led by
the Hastings Street Band
-In Conjunction with Heart of the City Festival Art Stroll- to arrive at Gallery Gachet for a traditional welcome with Harmony of Nations, followed by music from SCOW at 7.30pm)

In celebration of Gallery Gachet’s 20-year anniversary, and the 5th annual Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show, we proudly present an exhibition from the “inclusionary zone” of the DEOD (Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District), and more broadly from within the historically low-income and creative community of the Downtown Eastside. Featuring over 30 self-taught, new, and emerging local artists, this exhibition offers a unique perspective into history, heart and home.

The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show began in 2008 in anticipation of the changes, challenges and loss in a pre-Olympic city. It presented an opportunity to recognize the existing neighborhood, and its residents and members who play important and active roles in creating community by drawing on their history despite challenges and struggles.
Oppenheimer Park  is one of the few green spaces in the area and “one of the oldest surviving parks in the heart of the city”. It is often referred to as “the Backyard of the Downtown Eastside” and is also one of the few inclusive spaces left for people who are homeless, or living without adequate and safe housing. The Park hosts many programs, festivals and special events, and is the busiest park, per capita in the city.
The DEOD is the heart of the low-income community and is the only neighbourhood in Vancouver that is protected against real estate development by city policy – where any new building, even an addition to an existing building, legally has to include 20% social housing. Today the DEOD remains a resolute community of people upholding a vision of the Park as a place for art, education, recreation, health and healing.
Gallery Gachet’s relationship to the Downtown Eastside began in 1997 when the Collective moved into their space at 88 East Cordova Street. The Art-i-Fact: 88 East Cordova Street Project explores this history by including the presentation of two exhibitions, Gallery Gachet & The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show, and Collective Habitat 1997 – 2012 (Dec/Jan/Feb 2012), as well as a performance series curated by Irene Loughlin in Sept 2011, and an online exhibition through the Virtual Museum of Canada. This landmark programming tells the story of an artist community, full of resilience and ingenuity with the capacity to survive a multitude of challenges.
Gallery Gachet & The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show features more than 30 artists, as well as a hundred donated artworks contributed by local artists taking part in the community art project fundraiser for local, low-income artists. Among the featured artists are some past participants of Gallery Gachet community projects: Out of the Rain, The Art Cart Project (in partnership with Oppenheimer Park), The Lux Hoardings Project, Pigeon Park Bench Project and Expressive Arts. With an increasingly more meaningful and significant creative partnership between Gallery Gachet and Oppenheimer Park, this exhibition hopes to continue to hold space for an authentic relationship between the gallery and the community, artists and audience, and an exploration of the past while moving forward together.
Additional Programming:

• Aboriginal Cultural Showcase: carving and drumming with Harmony of Nations, at Oppenheimer Park: Thursday Nov 1st, 1:30 – 4pm
• Artist Talk & Forum: Gallery Gachet, Sat Nov 3rd, 2 – 4pm
• Chindi Nation Sewing Clinics: Gallery Gachet, Nov 14th, 2 -4pm
• Art Cart at the DNC Market: every Sun from Nov 4th – 18th

Special thanks to Ali Lohan and Quin Martins for their coordination and creative skills on this project, and to Oppenheimer Park and the Heart of the City Festival for their generous support.
For more information, please contact Lara Fitzgerald, Gallery Gachet, 604 687 2468.

To see pictures from this exhibition, please visit our Flickr account https://www.flickr.com/photos/gallerygachet/sets/72157631882616803