Polished Walls, Rotten Foundations: Vancouver’s Two Faces

 🎭 Polished Walls, Rotten Foundations: Vancouver’s Two Faces

This week in Vancouver, two headlines collided in a way that says everything about our city.

🖼️ The Surface: Astro Arts Festival, Co-Curated by Doug Coupland

A big, bold new mural festival popped up in Mount Pleasant, featuring public art, light installations, and media buzz.
It’s being sold as a “revival” of Vancouver’s arts scene — a celebration of creativity, space, and community.

But for many of us…
We weren’t invited.
We weren’t included.
We weren’t meant to be.

This isn’t the community building itself up —
This is a brand being polished for developers, tourists, and investors.
Mount Pleasant has been gentrified to the core.
It’s not an arts district anymore — it’s a real estate product.

Let’s not forget — Doug Coupland is closely tied to Chip Wilson, who turned Lululemon into a real estate empire. These aren’t just artists — they’re gatekeepers of culture in a city that’s rapidly being sold off.

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🏗️ Beneath It: Bribes, Corruption, and 10 Years of Conflict

While murals were being painted, the city’s auditor general released a bombshell report:
A Vancouver building inspector operated with a blatant conflict of interest for over a decade — owning a private construction-related business while doing inspections.

Bribes were offered.
Supervisors knew.
No one stopped it.

So while we were looking at shiny paint on alley walls, the actual housing system was rotting from the inside.

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🔥 The Truth

You can’t paint over a housing crisis.
You can’t mural your way out of inequality.
You can’t call it “community” if it’s built on exclusion, profit, and speculation.

Real art uplifts. Real community includes. Real justice holds power accountable.

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🛠️ So What Do We Do?

We stop buying into curated narratives — and start telling our own.

• We build tiny homes where they build luxury condos.
• We paint our truths where they paint distractions.
• We grow food and trust where they grow profit.

They can keep their gated festivals.
We’ll build free, open ones in backyards, alleys, and hearts.