BC Library Conference 2019

Generously Sponsored By: UBC Library

Champions of Imagination - Why Libraries Can Save Life on Earth

A massive unleashing of imagination can shift our current crisis. We usher this possibility in with the guidance of libraries and the people who work in them. As institutions transforming their design, libraries possess the momentum with which to inspire and equip citizens in creating a just city, a protected Earth and a beloved community. We must transform the story, raise the ancient song, point to that remedy and do it now.

Vanessa Richards examines creativity in common life. Her participatory arts practice invites communities to explore life when we turn more toward each other than away.

She has devised and delivered social arts projects with The Portland Hotel Society (PHS), Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Coastal Health, Public Dreams Society, The Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver International Children’s Festival, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Capilano University, and Vancouver Park Board, among others.

Verse and music are central to her interests. At Cardiff University she earned an MPhil in Creative Writing with poetry and critical anthologized in the UK, Holland, United States and Canada. She is the founder and choir leader of Van Van Song Society (formerly Woodward’s Community Singers) and director of Creative Together, song based facilitation.

Committed to the unique history and futurity of people of African decent in British Columbia, Richards has been an active member of the City of Vancouver’s Black History Month Citizen’s Advisory Group. As a volunteer board member of the Hogan’s Alley Society, they have been participating in the development of the Northeast Falsecreek Plan which formally acknowledges and redresses the erasure and resurgence of Vancouver’s African diasporic culture in its original Strathcona neighbourhood displaced by the Georgia Viaduct.

At 312 Main in the DTES, she is the Director of Community Engagement helping to transform the former headquarters of the Vancouver Police into a new coworking centre for social and economic innovation. In 2018, she received the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Achievement Award for her work in the realm of civic imagination.