ouro collective | sotto51 | 2019-20

Secured two grants for Vancouver-based OURO Collective. One from the Explore & Create: Concept to Realization fund and one from the Arts Across Canada Travel fund: $24,000 + $11,500.

As the Vancouver landscape is constantly shifting, we ponder what history is lost and forgotten. Through SOTTO 51, we research, remember, and celebrate Block 51, 61, and 71, commonly known as Robson Square, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Provincial Law Courts–an area of the unceded Coast Salish territory and the City of Vancouver that is significant to the street dance community and personally to OURO members.

With SOTTO 51 we are considering how changes in our urban landscape effect personal memory and cultural amnesia, and how an erased past effects future generations. Our research starts with the indigenous history of Robson Square (through consultation from the Aboriginal Programs at Emily Carr University of Art + Design), followed by the history of the colonial site that Robson Square represents to present day and also looking at what the future holds for the site. We have and will be talking to various historians, dancers, architects (Arthur Erickson Foundation), and various shop keepers in the area

Project Site: ourocollective.com/sotto-51/