The Show Must Go On: Birthing SFU Woodward’s Before and After the 2010 Olympics

Coincident with the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Cultural Olympiad, Simon Fraser University relocated its Contemporary Arts program to the SFU Woodward’s (SFUW) building as part of a major redevelopment initiative, which included a promise of cultural/community engagement within a neighbourhood historically under social and economic distress. The implications of this new mandate involved much consultation on how best to proceed in such a challenging context—which included additional logistical and social constraints related to SFUW’s partnership with the Cultural Olympiad on a production of Robert Lepage’s The Blue Dragon. Five years later, with more than forty community cultural partners and distinct cultural programs, SFU Woodward’s has developed an engagement platform distinguished by a street smart approach. In this reflection, I focus on how SFUW has negotiated how best to support the notion of the right to culture for all in its many activities.