Up and Down: Downtown Eastside Architecture by artist Arni Haraldsson is a publication made along with his exhibition under the same name at Artspeak in 2003. It was also produced at the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Carnegie Centre — a community centre at the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES). This exhibition publication is comprised of 12 postcards that pair photographs of the DTES by Arni Haraldsson between the early1990s and the early 2000s with passages on the back by artists and writers whose practices share similar concerns over the gentrification process and related socio-economic problems at the DTES.
Although a deck of postcards isn’t any novelty in the realm of artists’ books, this publication is peculiar in its contrast of the aesthetics of architecture photography and urban decay, and the dire message it bears which is shown in the very limited but carefully selected texts. The photographs have a uniformed “detached” and documentary feeling to them, yet they also strike a sense of melancholy as there is barely any figure in these slightly dark-lit architecture shots. Some of them juxtapose abandoned or dated buildings with the newly built ones or the enormous cranes by the water and the prestigious neighbourhood across the water. Some of them simply expose dark and filthy alleys (not to say that there isn’t artistic or aesthetic value to it).
But it isn’t until you flip the card over and see the rather blunt criticism in the text towards all aspects of the city development in Vancouver at the time, that you realize that Haraldsson wants to show the authentic DTES. There are complaints of politicians by name of their economic or housing policies that caused more severe social inequality, disappointment and despair in the changing urban landscape into a sea of generic-looking high-rise condominiums, and description of increasing violent incidents witnessed by the neighbourhood. There are even underlines below certain words that force you to notice them: burned out, very sick, Vancouver.
As a first generation immigrant to Vancouver, I’ve always been fascinated by the dynamics at the DTES, as it is constantly in the spotlight of many pressing social issues in the city: housing crisis, fentanyl epidemic… It seems to operate in its own rhythm and habitat, yet it reflects the brutal truth that we all live in without a filter. Up and Down: Downtown Eastside Architecture also strikes a cord in my own interaction with the space since I moved to the city. I am now intrigued to take a stroll again in this unique neighbourhood that refuses to be defined by a few words.
Works Cited
Haraldsson, Arni. Up and Down: Downtown Eastside Architecture. Vancouver, BC : Artspeak, 2003.
Up & Down : Downtown Eastside Architecture by
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