How can we preserve arts and culture when they seem to be the least important issue on the agenda?
Cami Davila (she/her) // Crew Writer
Anya Ali Mulzet (they/them) // Illustrator
According to a report by the Eastside Arts Society, from 2009 to 2019 the city of Vancouver lost 400,000 square feet of art spaces. As stated in the same article, 1,332 artists of the 1,612 with studios in the city faced an “imminent threat” of forced relocation. “We, as Vancouver artists, must always be on the lookout for another place to go to, should our current space become prohibitively expensive, or alternatively, if the landlord wishes to use the space for other purposes,” explained one local artist on the report. In a scenario where arts and culture are no longer a priority, the non-profit organization 221A works to preserve the infrastructure artists need to work.
Cultural Land Trust
One of the biggest ongoing 221A’s projects is Cultural Land Trust (CLT), an initiative that seeks to protect arts and cultural spaces in B.C. for the long term through ownership and care of land and buildings. This community model is essentially focused on black, Indigenous and People of colour (BIPOC), LGBTQ2IA+, low-income and disabled artists.
If the project works as the 221A team has planned, the long-term benefits will include stable rents, long-term leases, pathways to ownership and redeveloped properties that maximize their use. Cultural Land Trust’s initial goal is to secure 30 properties in B.C. by 2050, government and owned by the community.
As noted by 221A’s executive director Brian McBay in an interview with The Tyee, the project integrates “certain values around the collective control of land and ensuring equity groups, including Indigenous folks and host nations, can have a mechanism in place to ensure that there’s right relations when it comes to using these lands and developing them.” In March of 2023, they finished their business planning phase, and now are working on getting funds through their website: 221a.ca/donate.
Sector Equity for Anti-Racism in the Arts (SEARA)
In 2020, inspired by social justice movements like Black Lives Matter, Landback and Free Palestine, a handful of organizations came together to form Sector Equity for Anti-Racism in the Arts. Among those, Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres (PAARC) and 221A emerged as financial sponsors of the movement. SEARA seeks to draw the attention of Canada’s art world to stop perpetuating and creating outside eurocentric, colonial and racist structural ideas. As is stated in the 221A website, the goal is to “create an equitable society where BIPOC artists and cultural workers have equal capacity, governance, social standing, and visibility within arts institutions in BC.”
According to the Canadian charitable foundation Vancity Community Foundation, SEARA raised $319,000, which was later distributed in microgrants to Black, Indigenous and People of Colour artists and cultural workers in B.C.
Recently, on February 28, 2026, SEARA presented Link & Build: A Panel on Anti-Racism Advocacy in the Arts, a space to discuss the history and future of anti-racism advocacy in the heritage sector, arts and culture.