Is it Apathy?

I moved to Vancouver about three years ago after finishing school, thinking that I would be heading to a city with great culture and appreciation for the arts.  I had spent my entire life living less than two-hundred kilometres from Toronto, and really had no desire to stay in such a close proximity to everything that seemed so familiar to me and the idea of a Montreal winter wasn’t to appealing at the time.  (After being through a few Vancouver winter’s now though, I am constantly weighing the options of pouring rain vs. snow banks.)

Unfortunately what I realized shortly after moving to Vancouver, is that the city suffers from a huge deficit of culture.  There is one stark exception to this, and that is of film.  As a lover of film I consider myself incredibly lucky to be within a 15-20 minute walk of three independent commercial theatres, along with the Pacific Cinematheque and the Vancity VIFF Theatre.  But in regards to everything else, Vancouver is lacking.  The music scene is incredibly small compared to other major North American cities and over-saturated by way to much terrible techno music, visual art (other than photography), has a minutely better standing, with a spackling of independent galleries.

Now for photography, which I originally began this rant for.  Canada has never been the beholder of excellent photographic culture in the view of the world, but recently, huge events like the month long CONTACT Festival in Toronto are beginning to shine a global light on the wealth of talented Photographers residing in Canada, and bringing in some great international names to produce workshops such as Magnum Photos and Duckrabbit among others.

 But why is there nothing of this nature in Vancouver?

For all of my discrepancies with the city, it is truly a beautiful place filled with amazing people.  There are so many talented artists and creatives here, which, for me is one of the most perturbing aspects of this deficit of culture.  Why, if there are so many talented individuals, is there such a small aspect of community?  Is it because vancouver is a starkly individual city? Is it narcissism and envy, or is it apathy?

I have my reserved opinion about this, but what’s yours?

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