#MakeArtWhileApart

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the city into lockdown, leaving downtown Vancouver and businesses in the surrounding areas boarded up and desolate. In response, over 6 weeks in April-May 2020, VMF teamed up with local artists, Business Associations, Vancity, City of Vancouver and Goodbye Graffiti to create over 60 temporary murals on storefronts to inspire hope, brighten streets, celebrate resilience and connect communities.

As soon as we saw the thousands of feet of plywood boarding up the city, we started reaching out to our network with a pitch deck, timeline, and budget needs. Within days we pulled together a production team and put everything we had into patchworking this all together at lightning speed. During this time we were also trying to figure out how to transform Vancouver Mural Festival from a street party into … we had no idea at this point!. Thanks to the city of Vancouver, Vancity Credit Union, Downtown Vancouver BIA, Robson BIA and South Granville BIA, we secured the funding to take action. We reached to building owners, then to our network of artists via our Lead Curator, Drew Young. Once hired, artists received supplies, technical support and an honorarium for their work.

VMF handled the safety, insurance, comms with building owners, documentation, contracts, and clean up (all over 6 weeks!). It was early days of the pandemic and we took extra precautions to ensure we were limiting risks to our technical production staff, the artists and the passerby. Our Technical Director, Brit Lawrence, devised a contactless drop off process for the supplies to the artists, we created no-go areas around the artists to deter the public from coming too close to the artists, and we had implemented a rigorous sanitation process for the crew and site. In the end, it was the incredible outpouring of appreciation #MakeArtWhileApart online and at the walls, that made it such a beautiful project. It was a love letter to this place we call home.