LOCAL ARTISTS IN NEW WESTMINSTER HAVE BEEN NEGLECTED BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT WITH NO DEDICATED AFFORDABLE SPACE TO WORK AND SHOWCASE THEIR ART
New Westminster (August 22, 2022): New West Progressives (NWP) are rolling out their platform in advance of the October 15, 2022 municipal election to highlight the most important issues facing our community. Our city has an incredible arts and culture community that has demonstrated it can produce top-quality festivals, events and products. Sadly, nobody knows about it! The current city council has neglected to support our local artists and small business owners and simply left them to fend for themselves. If elected, mayoral candidate Ken Armstrong and NWP council candidates will promote our artists and cultural activities to local residents, Canadians across the country, neighbours to the south and tourists abroad to raise awareness of our incredibly artistic community.
“New Westminster has a vibrant arts and culture community with talented and creative professionals,” says Glenbrook North resident and council candidate Jiayi Li-McCarthy. “These artists are musicians, painters, actors and entrepreneurs. As a city councillor, I will ensure city hall continues its multi-year arts and culture funding strategy and explore every opportunity to develop new places in the city for artists to work and display their art.”
The Arts Council of New Westminster is nestled in beautiful Queen’s Park at Centennial Lodge. It is a place to peacefully muse at the incredible work of local artist at monthly exhibits and gather with like-minded community members. To increase awareness and attract more people to these local art galleries, NWP commits to installing additional signage to direct the public and tourists to local artisans and their studios. This would also include more permanent public signage and promotion of farmer’s markets and similar events.
“Artists need space to create and showcase their work,” says Li-McCarthy. “One of my initiatives on city council will be to establish accessible city land or buildings to foster the development of a new ‘NW Art Market’ which would profile and celebrate local artisans.” The Anvil Centre is a large venue in the downtown core of New Westminster; however, the cost to rent a room or use the facility is unaffordable to many citizens. If elected, NWP will conduct an independent review of the Anvil Centre’s programs, cost structure and fees with the goal of making it more of a regional hub for concerts and plays and bringing the gallery to the street level for greater public interaction.
“NWP will also implement effective, meaningful and ongoing dialogue with the local arts and culture community to gather their input on support services and programs,” says McCarthy. “There is a duplication of city-operated arts programs and those run by community groups and agencies. With the public’s feedback, we will reduce or eliminate these redundant programs with an aim to supporting community groups as the first priority.”
Over the next several weeks, NWP candidates will be sharing many of their policy ideas aimed to address the concerns they have heard from New Westminster residents and businesses, leading up to the unveiling of the NWP’s 2022 campaign platform next month. Follow all campaign announcements at nwprogressives.ca/platform.