My partnership at VIVO Media Arts Centre as the Promotions Assistant has (finally) started! My first day at VIVO was on Wednesday, October 26th which was also the first time I met my contact, Elisa Ferrari. Elisa is a media artist and the events/exhibitions coordinator at VIVO. So far, I do not have a plan or outline for my partnership because I will be helping Elisa with various tasks as they come.

DAY 1:

My first day at VIVO started with a tour of their relatively new location on Kaslo Street. The video archive was particularly exciting to see, with tapes and publications dating from the early 70s when VIVO began as the Satellite Video Exchange Society. The tapes that have been distributed through the years have been digitized and thus, preserved. However, Elisa explained that there are still a lot more tapes that have never been used/distributed, thus, have not been digitized. Their new video library space does not have the best air system (the tapes need to be stored at a low tempurature to preserve the film)– but they are working on it! The general feeling that I got form the tour of VIVO is that its a very low-key, DIY space and that is still under construction.

After the tour, I was put to work sorting and counting posters from the past thirstDays and Destroy Vancouver shows, which were to be archived. I counted over 500 posters, input the numbers into an excel spreadsheet, and then printed pamphlets from each show. Even though this was a tedious task, it was interesting to experience the work environment at VIVO. Everyone generally kept to themselves and seemed to be steadily busy, yet laid-back.

While I was inputting poster counts into Excel, Elisa asked if I would rather go to a meeting at photographer/digital media artist, Jayce Salloum’s home. I of course said ‘yes,’ and we immediately left VIVO and headed downtown. Jayce is the current artist-in-residence who is the project curator of the thirstDays event series. (More info about thirstDays here: http://www.vivomediaarts.com/category/series/thirstdays-series/ )

The meeting at Jayce’s home in Gastown (which has an ~amazing~ view of the Vancouver Harbour) was held to discuss next month’s event (thirstDays No.10) which will take place on November 24th. Present at the meeting was Jayce, Elisa, Cathy, and Dima (who is currently in Beirut so she joined us via Skype). I took notes and was also assigned a few tasks to help with the promotion of the event. After the meeting, Elisa and I drove back to VIVO where I finished my tasks and then called it a day!