ROWERS RAVE ABOUT BURNABY LAKE
page
3
NUGGETS FROM BARLEE’S GOLD
page
6
GIRO RETURNS TO THE HEIGHTS
page
26
WEDNESDAY
July 11 2012 www.burnabynewsleader.com
Burnaby’s Halfway to Hollywood is headlining an all-ages show on Friday. See page A8
A look at new uses for Bonsor space Seniors centre to move to new facility, to vacate 3,200 square feet at rec centre Wanda Chow
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEl/NEWSlEADER
Vancouver artist Holly Schmidt checks the progress of the heirloom gardens she’s cultivating near the Burnaby Art Gallery as part of her art installation, The Moveable Feast.
Moveable Feast features edible art Mario Bartel
photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Some artists use vegetables as models for still life sketches and paintings. Holly Schmidt’s art is vegetables. Since May, the Vancouver artist has been planting, cultivating and now harvesting heirloom vegetables like atomic red carrots, Easter egg radishes, blue Russian potatoes and lemon cucumbers in large wooden container gardens near the Burnaby Art Gallery. The Moveable Feast is her project to engage passersby and visitors to
explore issues like urban farming, food production and consumption. Besides tending to her crops, Schmidt is also hosting a series of gardening workshops for youth and adults as well as three edible events that will give participants a chance to taste the bounty of her garden. And while it may seem odd to think of a garden as a work of art, the gallery’s public programmer, Shaun Dacey, says it’s not a great stretch. “Art creates dialogue,” says Dacey. “For us it’s about bringing in projects that engage with the public.” In fact, it was a similar garden
project Schmidt had planted last year at False Creek in Vancouver, near the Olympic Village, that piqued his own curiosity and got him thinking about the origins of the food in his own fridge. As Schmidt weeds and prunes every Wednesday afternoon from 1-3 p.m., and irregularly through the rest of the week, visitors ambling through Deer Lake Park pause, curious about what she’s doing. Some snap photos. Some ask questions or offer gardening advice. Some share stories about their own gardens.
EDDIE YAN & Team 604-722-7309 Your Burnaby Specialists
FREE HOME STAGING
golfburnaby.net centre realty
www.eddieyan.ca
Driving Ranges
• Burnaby Mountain
• Riverway
Pitch & Putt
• Central Park • Kensington
Which is exactly the point, says Schmidt. “They’re a little surprised that it’s art. But they start to think about it as art because it does inspire dialogue,” says Schmidt. “It makes sense in an interdisciplinary way. There’s also an aesthetic aspect to gardening.” For a while though, that aesthetic seemed an impossible goal as persistent rain and cold through spring made for a slow start to the growing season. Please see EATINg, A5
Play today!
The City of Burnaby is looking at potential new uses for space at Bonsor Recreation Complex when the seniors centre vacates it late next year. That’s when the Bonsor seniors centre will be moving into a purpose-built, 8,200-square-foot facility next to the Chancellor at Metrotown highrise residential development at Bennett Street and Nelson Avenue, on the former Kal Tire site. The developer, Polygon, is building the two-storey facility as a community amenity in exchange for bonus density the city granted for the condo project. The move, in the fall of 2013 at the earliest, will free up about 3,300 square feet on the upper floor of Bonsor and the parks and recreation department will spend about $150,000 to redesign the space. see FREED up, A4