B.C. Culture Days kicks-off with events to honour creativity and build belonging

Several weeks of events celebrating the diversity of arts and culture in the province have kicked off.

B.C. Culture Days, which is being held in more than 50 communities until Oct. 15, started this weekend. The events in every corner of the province, from Quesnel, B.C., to Cranbrook and Victoria.

The decentralized events offer the public a free glimpse of cultural performances, gatherings and arts workshops, which organizers boasted is the largest edition yet of the annual Culture Days, saying there will be more than 480 planned events taking place around B.C.

The free programming is funded by the provincial government through the charity Society to Bridge Arts and Community.

Culture Days is about "the health of the community and for everyone to be able to explore their own creativity and really enjoy what arts and culture brings to each city and town," program director Nazanin Shoja told CBC News on Sunday. "[Art] is something for everyone to enjoy."

Each year, the event also appoints 10 ambassadors who receive mentorship and training to plan cultural events, this year with a focus on accessibility, inclusion and resilience.

Vancouver artist and designer LeLe Chan speaks to CBC News at a B.C. Culture Days event in Vancouver on Sunday. She co-founded the non-profit Kapitamayan Cultural and Heritage Collective. (Janella Hamilton/CBC)

'A way we gather as a community'

That sentiment brought hundreds of Vancouverites to peruse Filipino-owned and -operated businesses, music and food at the first-ever Kamayan Fest on Main Street on Sunday.

Kamayan is a Tagalog word meaning to eat with your hands, explained organizer LeLe Chan, who co-founded the non-profit Kapitamayan Cultural and Heritage Collective.

"So we're celebrating here the fact that the things here are handmade, the foods are handheld foods, it's just a way we gather as a community," she said.

Chan says young Filipino people born in Canada, or who moved here at a young age, often feel disconnected from their cultures and languages, just like she did.

Chan says the festival is about celebrating young Filipinos' new twists on traditional food and creations. Stalls were provided to vendors without charge, in hopes of reducing the cost barriers that can keep some community businesses out of places to sell their wares.

"Our parents immigrated here and we were raised to assimilate," she said. "So this is a way to take what we know of our culture take the bits and pieces and celebrate those."

"We wanted to create something to say, 'You are Filipino enough.'"

One of the vendors at the event, jeweller Ro Apeles, said their business started as just a hobby. Now, it helps them support their parents, and by extension their grandparents, in the Philippines.

They use fresh-water filled pearls to created delicate, beaded designs.

"The fact that I can turn my hobby into a source of income and start giving back to them, it feels good to do what I love and support the people I love," said Apeles at the market on Sunday.

'A tool to express the personal experiences'

Meanwhile, on Granville Island the Culture Days events saw flamenco dancers in vibrant colours brightening up an overcast afternoon.

Rosario Ancer, who co-founded the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival which hosted the event, said it's great to share the intricacies and art of the Spanish dance form with the wider community.

"For me, the song form is the soul of flamenco," Ancer said. "That's what moves us as a dancer.

"Nowadays flamenco dancers, a lot of them, choose to use flamenco as a tool to express their personal experiences."

Around 500,000 people attended Culture Days events in B.C. in 2021, according to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport.