Introducing Brewery Creek

Description:

Introducing Brewery Creek: A Mount Pleasant Centennial Celebration was a collaborative programming series organized with grunt gallery, the Avenue for the Arts Society, and the Mount Pleasant Citizen Planning Committee. This multi-site initiative commemorated the 100th anniversary of Mount Pleasant through a constellation of artistic and community-driven projects that reimagined local histories and speculated on future urban possibilities.

As part of the program, Western Front presented the exhibition Introducing Brewery Creek: A Historical Exhibition on Old Mount Pleasant That Looks to the Future that featured historical photographs by Claude Douglas, scale models, tape recordings, drawings, and texts concerned with the history of Brewery Creek and proposals to reintroduce it. 

The exhibition traced the story of Brewery Creek, a long-buried freshwater stream that once flowed from present-day Tea Swamp Park down to False Creek. For over 10,000 years, this waterway was a vital site of gathering, sustenance, and cultural life for local Indigenous communities, its banks abundant with salmon, migratory birds, and native plant species.

At Western Front, the exhibition in the gallery was accompanied by outdoor sculptural interventions on Scotia Street. The larger city-wide series included mural projects, art workshops for children, and an exhibition on Vancouver’s urban watersheds at Granville Island. 

Curated by Glenn Lewis.