Eastside Arts Festival expands, opening the studio doors and public spaces of Vancouver’s arts scene
Marking its sixth year, the celebration brings communities together with more walking tours and hands-on workshops, from indigo dyeing to plein air drawing
An Urban Sketching workshop at the Eastside Arts Festival. Photo by Jon Pesochin
The Eastside Arts Festival runs July 17 to 26 at various locations
FORGET STANDING QUIETLY in a gallery. Instead, the Eastside Arts Festival invites visitors into the places where the neighbourhood’s creative community comes together.
Returning for its sixth year from July 17 to 26, the festival expands across the Eastside Arts District with artist-led workshops, neighbourhood walks, performances, and public events that offer a chance to experience how art is made, not just how it looks.
“The festival was really introduced because there’s a strong appetite in the community to meet the artists, see the art at the [Eastside Culture] Crawl, to learn how it’s all made and be a part of it,” says Sierra MacTavish, programs and development manager at the Eastside Arts Society.
That chance to peek behind the curtain has shaped the festival’s continued growth. The expanded walking tours give artists the chance to show visitors their East Vancouver. Artist-led explorations range from street photography and public art to Soundwalk, an active listening experience that encourages participants to experience familiar streets through sound rather than sight. Instead of pointing out landmarks, the festival allows artists to guide everyone through their own creative playground, sharing the places that inspire, challenge, and shape their work.
Watching artists at work is one thing; the festival’s workshops invite people to pull up a chair beside them. Visitors can try everything from glass fusing and indigo dyeing to plein air drawing, learning directly from the artists who practise those techniques every day. The workshops are selected through an open call, with organizers looking for experiences participants may not otherwise encounter. After all, it’s not every day a handful of coloured glass becomes a beautiful art piece to take home.
A floral-themed workshop. Photo by Jon Pesochin
“People are always, especially now, looking for new ways to work with their hands, get out of the house, meet new people, be creative,” MacTavish says. “I think this is a good opportunity to do so in a really welcoming and accessible environment.”
Part of the immersive experience is that it all unfolds inside breweries, artist studios, and community spaces that already form the neighbourhood’s creative ecosystem. From Terminal City Glass Co-op to Parker Street Studios, the venues themselves become part of the experience, while interactive events such as The Whitty Wily Poetry Connection invite audiences to collaborate with artist Claire Davis in creating spontaneous poems on a typewriter.
If the workshops and walking tours offer a glimpse into the creative process, the festival’s free gathering at MacLean Park on July 25 becomes a celebration of the community around it. Live music, public art, and an open-air art market bring the neighbourhood together, while partnerships with local organizations and venues help keep the festival rooted in the East Vancouver community. Looking back on last year’s event, MacTavish remembers it was the moments between performances that stayed with her.
“I saw high fives and hugs between people that were attending and the musicians,” she says. “It was just a moment where I really saw a community coming together and supporting one another.”
For MacTavish, opening studio doors also means thinking about whether those studios will still exist in years to come. Beyond producing festivals, the Eastside Arts Society works to protect, preserve, and expand East Vancouver’s arts and cultural spaces so artists can continue creating and working in the community.
“We’ve had a lot of loss of space in this part of the city, so I would love to see, instead of a loss, the growth of all the different work being done in the space,” she says.
Protecting those creative spaces isn’t only about preserving buildings. It’s about making sure people continue to discover them. You might leave the Eastside Arts Festival with a hand-printed tote bag or a new appreciation for a neighbourhood you thought you already knew, but the festival’s greatest gift may be a glimpse of where East Vancouver’s creative life begins. 
Eastside Arts Festival celebrations at Strathcona Park. Photo by Jon Pesochin
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