The New West Cultural Crawl is back for its 14th year, and this time, organizers are promising an event that’s bigger and better than ever before.
Every year, New Westminster’s arts and culture community opens its doors to the public, inviting guests to tour artists’ studios, check out new pieces and take part in interactive activities. The intention is to celebrate the city’s creativity and cultural diversity.
The annual event, organized in partnership by the Arts Council of New West and Van Dop Gallery, kicks off Friday night with an opening night to remember, according to cultural crawl coordinator Howard Dai.
“I would encourage everyone to come out to the opening night event so they can kind of get a taste of the crawl,” he said. “We have so many venues, and it’s hard to choose one to go to just based on the brochures.”
At the reception, folks will get to check out a selection of work in different media by different artists featured in the crawl while enjoying live entertainment and a drink or two from the cash bar.
“We’ll have a couple volunteers there to give suggestions,” Dai said. “We can plan out routes for you and tell you what buses to catch; we’ll tell you where the parking spots are; we’ll tell you what’s the best scenic route to travel if you want to walk. So come talk to us.”
The opening reception is happening from 5 to 7 p.m. at Anvil Centre and is coinciding with the opening of ArchiTEXTURE: Hard Edges in a Soft Medium, a new exhibition at the centre’s community art space featuring work by four New West textile artists.
Things ramp up on Saturday, but don’t expect to see everything on offer at this year’s cultural crawl, Dai said. This year’s event features 37 venues and even more artists. The Van Dop Gallery, one of the crawl’s co-presenters, will alone display work by seven artists – the New West Seven, which includes Gabor Gasztonyi, Jerry Maclaughlin, Leslie Poole, Angela Au Hemphill, Jim Walsh, J.G. Freedman and Lanta Mang.
Fine art and culture may be the main focus of the two-day festival, this year there are also a few stops dedicated to the world of culinary artwork. Blenz Coffee uptown is bringing in professional baristas to do demonstrations of latte art and both Old Crow Coffee Co. downtown and Match Eatery in Queensborough are participating in the event, too.
Also new this year is the addition of Royal City Centre to the list of venues. Dai said thanks to the success of the Royal City Wrestling event during Uptown Live, the mall was keen to take part in another community event.
“All the businesses in there are quite excited because they had quite a bit of traction, quite a big crowd from the wrestling event,” Dai said.
And that’s the point of the New West Cultural Crawl. What started in 2003 as a small, one-day event with eight venues has grown leaps and bounds over 14 years, and there’s no plans to slow down yet. Dai said this year they’re running a contest throughout the crawl to get more people out and taking part.
For a chance to win some sweet prizes, including passes to Feast on the Fraser, all folks have to do is take a photo at a venue during the crawl and include the name of the venue and
#NWCulturalCrawl. For more chances to win, post photos from other venues in other neighbourhoods (you’ll get one entry per neighbourhood).
For more information, including a list of all the venues participating this year, go to www.newwestcultural
crawl.com.
There will be brochures available and people to answer questions at an information booth at River Market (hosted by Tourism New West) on Saturday and Sunday.
Plenty to see on the crawl…
A Shakespeariance, featuring New West resident Julian Legere and part of the 2017 Riotous Youth internship with Bard Education at Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach. The free one-hour performance starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Massey Theatre.
Art in Bloom and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Port Royal Community Garden. Co-hosted by the Artists in the Boro and the Port Royal Community Garden Society, the event will include artwork on display, a blooming garden, live music and refreshments served from noon to 3 p.m.
PechaKucha in the park, Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Queen’s Park bandshell. Ten presenters will show 20 slides for 20 seconds each for a total of six minutes and 40 seconds each. Come early and enjoy food and drinks and entertainment by DJ Mutes Ito. Tickets are free, but you need to register. Get your free ticket at pechakuchanw.eventbrite.ca.
Royal City Gogos and Friends on display, Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unifor Hall, 326 12th St. There will be handmade jewelry, fine art, artisan demos, felt work and sewed pieces. Free parking. Refreshments available.
