Vines Art Festival
Vines is an arts organization and festival that is responsive to and nurturing of artists who are working toward land, water, and relational justice. It enlivens and disrupts public space with art and performance.
Founded in 2015 on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, Vines is devoted to supporting underrepresented voices in developing their work. The organization brings imagination into everyday spaces by presenting work for free on “earthstages”—populated and natural public spaces in Vancouver and throughout the province.
Vines has seen rapid growth, far beyond its annual, multidisciplinary festival in Trout Lake Park—an event that sees everything from art installations to dance and music spread throughout the natural landscape. Over the years it’s been able to hire more artists, host more events over a longer period of time in a variety of locations, and reach larger, more diverse audiences.
Vines’ unique vision is to present art that is created in relationship to the place and land it is presented on and that has transformative power to change and heal the way we are together.
The festival reconsiders how performance is presented by creating on and with the land, encouraging site-specific work, in both architecture and story, and strengthening art’s relation to land, people, and place. At the same time, Vines seeks to build and foster a loving community based on reciprocity, utilizing art as a method to work toward decolonization and to address such social issues as race, class, and gender.
The group consistently works toward making events accessible and cuturally diverse. Vines strives to make its performances inviting for disabled people, for the gender non-conforming, for low-income people, and for all ages. This requires it to remain nimble and responsive to its community by creating platforms that take care of artists rather than objects. Initiatives include ASL interpretation and blind- and low-vision-friendly performances.
Amid all this, Vines also sparks new creation. Its commissioning programs include Resilient Roots, a grassroots program for Indigenous artists; Vines’ Youth Program; and Intersections.
