Open Letter: Against Westbank

"From this point forward, we, the undersigned, commit to not working for Westbank Corp in any capacity, including commissions for Westbank-sponsored public artworks.

In solidarity with communities facing gentrification, we disavow art that perpetuates and/or justifies the displacement of a wide range of demographics that include but are not limited to: long-term communities within the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown such as Indigenous peoples (whose violently stolen, unceded, traditional land we are guests on) and first generation Chinese (who live in Chinatown formed out of racial segregation in the late 18th century), working class families surrounding the Joyce Station development, artists and grassroots arts organizations and other non-profit organizations across unceded Coast Salish territory.

Westbank is not a cultural producer. Gentrification is not an art practice. It’s crucial that the colonial implications of Westbank’s development practices are recognized. By sustaining imperial narratives of an untouched, unclaimed city, developers play a part in the ongoing displacement of Indigenous peoples.

As Westbank continues to expand across Canada, we reject their efforts to instrumentalize artists and ‘cultural creators’ as their projects continue to deteriorate standards of living and ways of life.

The imperial developer 'aesthetic,' that treats housing as an elite commodity, rather than a right, is an insult to the notion of art itself. Westbank’s 'cultural practice' does not support artists; in reality, its real estate ventures are instrumental in the long-term disenfranchisement and precarity of the majority of working artists. Luxury developments artificially inflate property values driving rents skyward, and ultimately place artists’ homes, places of work, and livelihoods in perpetual uncertainty as a result.

We as artists come together in solidarity with our communities and all communities suffering in the face of ongoing housing crises. Westbank profits from these crises. We refuse their attempts to appropriate the vernacular of art, creativity, aesthetics, and to use the arts and artists as a facade from which they continue to strip culture and the communities that make it."

Signed by me, & many others
- posted by cjb @ 12:35 PM