The ThunderBlogs

Looking for something interesting to do on the corner of Fraser and Kingsway, it is easy to gravitate towards the dainty French bistro, Les Faux Bourgeois. But the sound of boisterous laughter and beer bottles chiming across the street was more intriguing, even though it appeared as just another thank-goodness-it’s-Friday student party.  Having asked a cheerful stander-by smoking, it turns out the event was a record release of a local musician, and the unlabelled beer they were sipping was home brewed and cost 3 bucks.

The pencilled-in text on the door of 648 Kingsway speaks for itself of the penny pinching nature of the place, which reads, “Toast: Fine Arts and Portrait Studio.”  The space was decorated with mounted film photographs and withering red velvet couches nestled in the corners.  About a dozen of 20-somethings sprawled across the room.  One of them, Charlie Latimer, is the founder of the Toast Collective, a non-profit arts collective who runs DIY (do it yourself) workshops and provides space to local emerging artists.

Latimer, a tenant who lives above the space, said the initiative was borne out of a weariness from the place constantly changing to different businesses.  “First, it was a vintage boutique, then a dollar store, then at some point it was a church,” he recalled.  A UBC student in Global Resource Systems, Latimer is an art enthusiast who had several artist friends who were willing to pool their money together and indeed, “make something good of the space.”

The capacity building is obviously working, as the photograph installation of the night was for The Dark Room Co-op, just beside Toast, on 652 Kingsway.  The collaborative exhibit, entitled Agent Silver, was officially launched Saturday.   The work of 12 film photographers who are themselves members of the co-op were featured.  The live musicians had to pay a small fee, but founder Tamara Lee did not collect any commissions from the profits made from sales of the photographs, a rare agreement for an art studio.

Seeing the contrast between Friday’s casual CD launch with homemade beer and Saturday’s photo exhibition with white wine goes to show how two spaces can be transformed and linking with your neighbour proves a more effective business strategy than competing with each other.  Membership for the Toast is $25 annually and as low as $48 per month for the Dark Room Co-op , rates that rival their industries’ exuberant prices.  But the two collectives manage to make rent every month.   If only other businesses would apply the same self-sustaining, communal strategy to combat gentrification, Vancouver might not always have the dual nature of extremely rich or filthy poor.