Vancouver Film School students create a portfolio project or demo reel for graduation designed to demonstrate their creative and technical abilities to potential employers and collaborators. Among the many great samples, I dig Rain Crowds in the 3D animation category, Dance! in classic animation, and Border in digital character animation. But there are literally hundreds to choose from, so please enjoy.
posted by netbros on May 26, 2010 - 7 comments

"if you see ken around the downtown eastside, chinatown, or gastown, buy his art or i'll stab you in the neck!" Ken Foster wanders the streets of Vancouver, painting the neighborhoods and selling the paintings he's made on found objects.
posted by cross_impact on May 7, 2010 - 4 comments

This morning in Vancouver, volunteers handed out hundreds of disposable cameras, available free to any low-income resident of the city's Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood. Pictures in the returned cameras will be entered in this year's "Hope in Shadows" competition, with winners getting prizes and one of 12 spots in next year's calendar. (It will be sold by specially-trained low-income folks, who keep half their profits.) Run by Pivot, a local legal activism group, "Hope in Shadows" is a succesful and "innovative empowerment through art" project and a chance for the residents of the DTES to define their community -- one most often defined by its poverty, addictions, violence and disease.
Previous winners: 2004, 2005 [1] [2], 2006
posted by docgonzo on Jun 9, 2007 - 13 comments

We need more artists in politics! In 1969, Canadian performance artist Vincent Trasov constructed a human-sized peanut costume and took on the familiar identity of Planters mascot Mr. Peanut. Five years later, Trasov took his performance art persona to the next level as he entered Mr. Peanut into the 1974 Vancouver mayoral election, running on a platform of "Performance, Elegance, Art, Nonsense, Uniqueness, and Talent." Trasov posed a "visual question" to his opponents at the debates via tap dance, received at least one celebrity endorsement during his campaign, and in the end, garnered 3.4% of the vote. Recently, Trasov (and fellow artist Michael Morris) launched the Morris/Trasov Archive, where you can find a nice collection of photos from the campaign trail online (Performance -> My Five Years in a Nutshell).

Mr. Peanut remains a central part of Trasov's art; his "Histories" place Mr. Peanut in the Bamyian Valley of Afghanistan, the Marx-Engels monument at Berlin, and at the entrance to Thebes, playing the role of Oedipus opposite the Sphinx.
posted by duffell on Dec 10, 2006 - 11 comments

Some of the results from the city of Vancouver's Art Underfoot contest. "The competition invited anyone who lives, works, or goes to school in Vancouver to submit design ideas for new manhole covers..."
posted by dobbs on Sep 16, 2004 - 11 comments