Wanda Koop: The contagious power of art
For over 30 years, camera and small sketchbook in hand, Wanda Koop has pursued her research while documenting the imaginary world of her art. She took part in the Think Canada festival, a travelling exhibition that took her to Delhi, Madras and Bombay. Her travels through the worlds of the arts also took her to the Venice Biennale in 2001, where she presented her installation, In Your Eyes, the result of five years of work. Wanda Koop has received the Community Builder’s Award (2000) of the Manitoba Arts Council Foundation and an honorary doctorate from the University of Winnipeg in recognition of her national and international artistic work and her work with Art City.
Koop’s vision of art reflects as well an intelligent vision of the heart. She demonstrates a talent that extends beyond her studio and her community to the wider world. From Winnipeg, she tells us about her project Art City, and at the same time, about her own artistic determination. (The full interview can be consulted in issue # 11 of For the Arts.)
ART CITY: the project
Art City is a storefront arts centre for inner city youth at risk. It [is also] inter-age, so we now have young children and many parents. It is thriving – there are approximately 25 to 40 children a night.…
I call it the art heart of West Broadway and it truly is that. We have a photography program with a darkroom, a ceramic studio, a video and computer lab, a food program and an Art City van, an ‘art car’ created with artist Ken Gubrick from Vancouver. We have many outreach programs, group home caseworkers bring their kids to do workshops. We have off-campus students, beading and sewing workshops, interaction with the seniors home, Manitoba Theatre for Young People, mural projects on the sides of buildings, community parades and park beautification projects….
It shows us that individually and collectively we can all tap into our capacity for creativity – and that is our greatest gift.
ART CITY: the dream
This neighbourhood (West Broadway) had been referred to by the local press as murders’ half acre. There was a group of us who set about to make changes; we’ve been very successful….
We started out by getting money from local businesses to rent the space, borrowed students who were supposed to be watering plants to work as co-ordinators. A private businessman gave money for artists and I worked for free. For something like this you can’t do a quantitative study. But we’ve seen kids come in and lives changed….
The gang activities have gone down in our neighbourhood. Breaking and entering has almost disappeared. There’s a kind of energy and synergy in the community that is very special.
ART CITY: Making it happen
Funding is always a problem….
The cultural funding bodies at first thought of it as a special project, and the social agencies saw it as cultural. We have to apply for everything all the time, and core funding still eludes us. It’s a very ambitious program and we constantly need donations, donations of materials; we do a lot of recycling….
Art City has helped one community realize that through creative activity it can effect social change. Multiply this throughout all our communities. Can you imagine what could happen?…. Other cities are looking at our model and saying, ‘if it’s working for them, maybe it can work for us.’ And I don’t see why not.