Author Archive

Bing Thom has carved out his name in architecture over the decades, working on award-winning projects here and around the world.

He’s is a busy man, but never too busy to be one of the city’s leading voices for social activism, as well as arts and culture promotion. Right now, Bing is hard at work proposing an underground concert hall-slash-cultural hub, designed to be at the current Vancouver Art Gallery location.

Not only is he a wealth of knowledge and of life experience (and a Member of the Order of Canada!), he’s also someone who has always been is committed to doing the right thing.

And that makes Bing Thom an awesome addition to this Building Block series.

Photo: Brice Ferre

You grew up in Hong Kong first, then moved to Vancouver. Where did you grow up here?

BT: I grew up in Kerrisdale because my parents decided they wanted to move into a neighbourhood where there were no other Chinese people, so I could learn English. We were virtually the only asians in the neighbourhood. Growing up and through university, I hardly had any asian friends, but now it’s a little different. And now I’m in Kitsilano.

After university, you went to Japan. What made you move back?

BT: I was in Japan, China and Singapore. Then I figured, you have to find one place you can call home. You have to find where your roots are. My wife was drawn to come back, and I said, well, that’s probably my home.

My history is that my father was born here, and I was born in Hong Kong. In the 1930s, my father experienced a lot of discrimination in Vancouver and in the US because you couldn’t practice as a professional—he was a pharmacist and graduated from USC. When he came back to Canada, they said he couldn’t practice here, not because he was Chinese but because he wasn’t a Canadian citizen, even though he was born here. Back then, there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship. You were a British subject, and the British did not accept asians as subjects. He got fed up. During that time and before the Second World War, there was a war between China and Japan, so he decided to go back to China. He virtually immigrated back.

I figured my grandfather came, my father went back and I’m now rejecting North America, because I was in Berkeley at the time and was in this Third World strike, striking for Asian-American history. I went to Singapore after, but then asked myself, how many generations is it going to be, with this back and forth? I better find my roots, fight for what I believe in and just stay there. So that’s why I came back. And that’s why I’m socially active. You have to find your place. And this is my place now.
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You may have seen her work at Abbott and Hastings, a souvenir of her participation in Paint Your Faith last spring. Or you may have seen her stencil from the very few pictures that came out of the super secret Underbelly Project in New York last fall.

Indigo, nee Shallom Johnson, is an artist in every sense of the word: painter, stenciler, typographer, dancer, choreographer, writer and soon-to-be filmmaker. Despite having worked in the company of international artists like Workhorse, Peeta and Remi/Rough and being constantly involved in various projects all over the world, Indigo still finds time to teach classes at Purple Thistle and to find beauty in the roughness of her downtown eastside neighbourhood.

And that makes her awesome.

Where did you grow up, and what brought you to Vancouver?

I was born in Victoria, but my family moved up to Burns Lake, in Northern BC, when I was four years old. After high school I came to Vancouver and went to SFU. I did a BFA in Contemporary Dance, with an extended minor in English. I’ve been here ever since.

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There is no better person to kick this new series off with than Scott Hawthorn, a fellow who wears a great many creative and entrepreneurial hats. He has been a key player in keeping the local restaurant and food (as co-owner of Salt Tasting Room, Judas Goat and Alfresco outdoor guerilla dining), fashion (as co-owner of Native Shoes) and art (as founder of Parking Spot) scenes alive and, of course, awesome.

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Vancouver-transplant and 15-year fashion industry vet Myriam Laroche is the mastermind behind Eco Fashion Week, which kicks off tonight with an opening party at the Aveda Institute in Gastown and ends on Thursday with a DJ set by K-OS at Club 560.

More importantly, in between, there are seminars from industry experts, like WGSN’s Carly Stojsic and Summer Rayne Oakes, and from Nobel Peace Prize winners, like Dr. Andrew Weaver. Designers Nicole Bridger, Lara Miller, Kim Cathers, Lav & Kush, Lara Presber and more are sending their sustainable collections down the runway at Creekside Community Centre (the greenest building in the city, by the way!) in the Olympic Village during the four-day event

Myriam took a couple minutes out of her hectic agenda to answer a few very quick questions about Eco Fashion Week and why it’s so awesome for Vancouver and the rest of the world. –May Globus

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Nicole speaks at the Eco-Fashion Week launch party. Rachel Fox photo.

Nicole Bridger is a Vancouver designer whose eponymous label is synonymous with sustainable fashion. Each of her garments are draped beautifully (a skill no doubt honed interning at Vivienne Westwood) is made locally, using bamboo cotton, hemp jersey and organic knit from as close as possible (hooray for small carbon footprints!). Embellishments come in the form of affirmation labels, tagua nut buttons and 100% post-consumer paper hangtags, and Nicole even includes where all the fabrics from her minimal, neutral-tone collections come from, too.

The Nicole Bridger show is tonight, with doors opening at 8pm. Tickets are still available, so get yours now.

Michael Green is one of three principals at McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design (mgb), a firm that has been doing phenomenal things in design for this city since its inception seven years ago in a North Van backyard. Recently, mgb won two accolades at the International Interior Design Association awards in Chicago, one for the Rennie Gallery and one for LYNNsteven, the Gastown boutique with that awesome cylinder change room-slash-bathroom made of nearly 6,000 paperback books.

As if Michael isn’t busy enough already, he’s also working with the Aga Khan Development Network to build housing for a community in Tajikistan and pushing forward with his House The World organization, which has a mandate to reinvent the local timber industry and put Canada on the forefront of providing affordable housing worldwide. And between all of that, Michael climbs as many mountains and kayaks as many bodies of water as possible. In one word? Awesome. –May Globus

Most Vancouverites know the Bob Rennie of Rennie Marketing Systems, the largest real estate marketing firm in town.

But do you know the Bob Rennie that happens to own the largest personal art collection in all of North America? Yeah, wow. The first piece of artwork Bob ever bought was a Norman Rockwell print at the age of 17, which goes to show he had a love for arts and culture right from the get-go. Both his new office headquarters and adjoining personal gallery in the historic Wing Sang Building call Chinatown home — plus sometimes Bob gives gallery tours on Sundays and he has an Expo Ernie! — all of which we think is totally, totally awesome. –May Globus

What neighbourhood did you grow up in and where do you live now?

I grew up in East Vancouver. Maybe that’s why I have a comfort with the downtown eastside. Now I live just off Granville Island; it works out really central for us.

Why did you pick Chinatown for your new office and gallery?

The city has been good to me. I’ve sold real estate here for 35 years, and I want to help balance out the downtown eastside. I represented Woodwards for the developer, and I couldn’t afford to [build the offices] on Granville or on Burrard, though probably after this I may as well have! I wanted something to balance off the art, and [since the Wing Sang Building] is the oldest building in Chinatown, it just seemed to be a really nice, civil fit for a museum to be housed, culture within culture.
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Eoin and Insiya Finn are big in the global and local yoga scene, spreading their happy Blissology message through teaching both yoga and surfing, launching social initiatives in the downtown eastside (like their Lu’s Pharmacy program) and continuing to do something they call the Hammock Manifesto (read: set up hammocks in a city and its people shall come to chill). Their relaxed vibe and good aura is positively awesome to be around — the world could use more folks like Eoin and Insiya. Namaste! –May Globus

How long have you been in Vancouver?

EF: I’ve been back since 1999. At time there weren’t a lot of yoga classes. In fact, I could just think of a handful that existed back then; there was only one yoga studio. [I was living in Japan doing real estate] for three years or four years but was never really happy, though the money was awesome. A couple of doors closed when the Japanese economy got bad, and I thought to myself, you know, the money’s great but if I’m not inspired by what my hearts wants to do, why bother? For me, I’ve always had a life mission. If [what I'm doing is] not totally in line with my life mission, even if the money’s awesome, then I’m not doing it. So I went back to Hawaii for surfing and windsurfing and doing yoga again. [When I was living there], I never thought about teaching yoga because a lot of the people I was learning from had been doing it from before I was born. Why would I teach there when there were so many masters [at it]? Back here, I couldn’t find any yoga classes I wanted to go to, so I thought I might as well start teaching them.

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