Their original offices resembled your bedroom closet.

Claustrophobic working conditions were no way to house Vancouver’s leading arts organizations. But now, everything’s different.

This co-working space is now transforming the Arts community in Vancouver. Introducing The Post @ 750, this space is the new home for DOXA Documentary Film Festival, PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, and Touchstone Theatre Music on Main.

Located at 750 West Hamilton St. in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, The Post is an innovative cultural hub that provides not only more generous square footage, but also exciting opportunities for inter-arts collaboration and community engagement.

[Video Transcript Below]

A.) ABOUT THE COLOCATION SPACE:

Kenji (DOXA): So the space is managed by the 110 Arts Cooperative, it’s an 8500 square foot facility, arts, co-location facility. and we have 4 dedicated spaces for the 4 residents)

Kenji: we have 4 meeting rooms, 2 studios for community use and for rehearsals, a lounge, a kitchen, a flex space and a hot desk area as well.

Dave (Music on Main): All of us were working in substandard offices previously and that affects the kind of work you’re able to get done. Today we’re able to bump into each other, we’re able to have those conversations in the kitchen between industries, between different kinds of genres. So the space, as a manifestation of the quality of work we can do is truly truly thrilling.

Katrina (Touchstone Theatre): The space is a collaboration between 4 organizations. It’s a shared office and administrative space as well as a community use, creative space. So it combines 2 really important things in a spirit of innovation and collaboration”

Norman (PuSH Festival): For me personally the space is certainly a hub or an incubator, we have a potential to invite artists from around the world and across Canada to come here on residency.

Norman:

“For me it’s about the arts being in the centre of vancouver. In the Centre of its identity and in the centre of its future and core to who we are as citizenry, and who we are as arts creators and such, and who we are in this region, so to be here, right here at 750 Hamilton to me is a statement of sorts, a declaration of the arts, that arts are at the center of who we are, and where we are going.

B) IMPORTANCE OF COLOCATION FOR ARTS ORGANIZATIONS:

Long-term planning & Sustainability:

Katrina: Touchstone theatre is a company that’s been around for almost 4 decades and has never had a permanent home in Vancouver..so this is a game changer for our organization”.

Katrina: Knowing where we are going to be, 10 years down the road, really changes how you think about your organization…and we’ve never had that. But now we can really put down roots here and think about the culture we want to create for ourselves and the larger community.”

Collaboration & Shared Resource:

Kenji: ”One of the biggest things that this colocation space means to DOXA is the opportunity to collaborate with the other organizations and to also share resources.”

Dave:This new space downtown is truly mindblowing for all of us who come here everyday. It’s created so we can collaborate and it’s created so we can have a feeling of cooperation.

Dave: At the heart of co-location is Collaboration. We bring 4 organizations together, 4 organizations who choose to come together, to collaborate, to make art together. But to also make business ideas together to change the economy in the city.

Norman: To know that this is where we’ll be working out of. To know it’s affordable, to know that we have colleagues and partners to share our ideas with, to share information, to share our perspectives on emerging trends and such is to know that we have a place to work from and to work out of.

Norman: But that working together, we’ll start to share opportunities for fundraising, opportunities for programming, for shared human resource.”

C) IMPORTANCE OF COLOCATION FOR ARTS SECTOR

Norman:

“Everybody looks for inspiration and I think this is an inspiring example of a response and answer to the challenge of real estate, to the challenge of remaining in the centre of the city and the challenge of combining resources and the challenge of scaling organization. I think it’s a success story and success stories inspire us. Inspire everybody.

Norman:

We, I think found some interesting solutions to how we govern ourselves, how we come together..To me it’s not only a cooperative, but a confederacy. Confederacy of separate entities who have come together under one purpose and under one sense of mission: “It’s to change the financial conditions from which we are operating and to have a shared sense of purpose around that

Kenji:

“One of the things that I hope the arts sector can take away from this space is, one, the model we are choosing to use which is a cooperative model and shared model, so that it does provide more sustainability and long-term planning for not only for us, but for other organizations. I do hope that other organizations in the arts make use of this space. It’s about having an affordable, rehearsal and presentation space within the downtown core.

Dave:

“We come together collaboratively, we come together as a cooperative and we come together to make decisions that aren’t just the best decisions for our own individual companies, and make decisions that aren’t just the best decisions for the 4 companies that are here. But each of the leaders of this new organization, this cooperative. We think about how is this going to make a positive impact on the arts economy, on the arts sector, on the art that we can make. So it’s something we really do believe in our hearts is bigger than just the organizations themselves.

Katrina:

“I think that the arts sector in Vancouver…really needs space. We’ve been hungry for space for many years….So this space is very important as yet another step in this city in ensuring that we have these spaces there, for the artistic community and spreading out from that for the general public…so it’s about really making a stamp on the landscape to say that this is designated creative space.

D) MOST EXCITING ASPECT OF COLOCATING

Kenji: It’s pretty immense when you actually have the opportunity to walk in the hall and bump into somebody and just have a quick conversation whether that’s development or artistic or operational. That’s one of the most exciting things for us to be in this space.

Dave: For me, it’s that the kitchen is going to be a kind of town square. A place where not just these 4 organizations can meet and bump into each other and share ideas, but a place where artists across the city and across the country can come and rehearse and we can bump into them and we can think of new ways of making art, we can think about cross discipline collaborations, we can learn more from each other. So the kitchen, I have to say, is the most exciting element of this space.

Katrina: I think what we’re excited about is building a legacy for ourselves and for the arts community in this space, with this space, with the tools that the space has given us.

Norman: It’s a story that will unfold over time that will take time. What I do know right now is I have a firm belief that the benefits that will come back to us collectively and individually are unimaginable in a great way. It’s the unknown…but an unknown that will unfold in extraordinary ways.”

E) INVITATION TO YOU

Kenji: Come check it out and just be as excited as we are being here.

Kenji: Just walk through it and experience it like we have and do everyday

Kenji: Living the space and sharing the story that we’ve been able to create about collaboration, about the future of the arts within the downtown core of Vancouver. this model is something I feel can be replicated across the board

Dave: We built this space to be as open and welcoming as possible, and we really invite you down to see how it can transform your art

Katrina: We’d really like to invite you to come down to the space, take a look around and see what we’ve created and see how you might imagine yourself here. How do you see yourself here and how can we help with that, and how can you be a part of it. We hope that you join us, here.

Norman: Reach out, ask us to give you a tour. Give us a call, we’d love to show you around.