Photo by Joseph Mark Switzer
Between 2008 and 2011, Welcome BC’s Welcoming and Inclusive Communities and Workplace Program (WICWP) funded 89 projects across 32 communities in B.C. aimed at promoting cross-cultural understanding and developing community partnerships. With funding from this initiative, Susan Faehndrich-Findlay, a community leader in Vancouver’s South Hill neighbourhood, teamed up with Genie award winning filmmaker, Nettie Wild (FIX: the Story of an Addicted City, A Place Called Chiapas) to create the interactive website, Inside Stories.
The Inside Stories Project
South Hill Community Leader Susan Faehndrich-Findlay | Photo by Joseph Mark Switzer
In 2011 the Inside Stories interactive program appeared as one of the main features of the South Hill Community website. The website provides short glimpses into the lives of nine South Hill residents, enmeshing black and white photos with excerpts from interviews conducted with the participating residents. Bringing in local photographer Shannon Mendes and digital designer Jeremy Mendes, Faehndrich-Findlay and Wild documented some of the experiences of a diverse community.
Highlighting these experiences, the project puts forth the question, “If we heard our neighbours’ stories, would we relate to them differently?”
Known for her documentary films, Wild got involved with the project to explore new mediums.
“There wasn’t enough funding for a film, so we decided on an interactive web project,” Wild says.
Uniting neighbors
Nasrin Jamalzadah at her hair salon | Photo by Joseph Mark Switzer
Nasrin Jamalzadah is an Afghan hair stylist. Erwin Cornelsen is a German immigrant and frequent patron of the YMCA. Jinder Johal is a librarian at the South Hill Branch. These are just a few of the people whose stories are shared on the vivid interactive website, where visitors scroll over images of local homes and businesses and click on the stories they wish to see.
The project served as a bridge between community members. Now more familiar with South Hill stories, some locals felt more impetus to engage in conversation with one another.
“When customers came to me, they had more questions,” says Jamalzadah from her hair salon on Main Street. “The stories continued here.”
Some neighbours were brought together in unexpected ways, learning about people they had seen but never spoken to.
“I didn’t know that [Cornelsen] was the father of this young boy who I really liked in elementary school,” says Johal.
“The best possible outcome was something subtle. It was one neighbor talking to another. It built up the cultural layers in the neighbourhood,” says Wild.
Invigorating community participation
Inside Stories had a galvanizing effect on the community.
Inspired by the project and other things going on in the neighbourhood, a group of residents formed a non-profit society and a board of directors who meet once a month to organize community-building events.
“We definitely got more organized,” Faehndrich-Findlay says.
For South Hill residents, art builds connections in the community. As part of Vancouver’s 125th birthday celebration, the South Hill Public Art Committee launched the Inside Stories Mural Project. Inspired by Parisian street artist JR, pictures from Inside Stories were blown up into murals and placed around the neighbourhood.
With support from the South Hill Business Improvement Association (SHBIA) Art Plan “Changing Faces,” the eastern wall of John Oliver Secondary School was decorated with murals of alumni as well as current students. With guidance from Faehndrich-Findlay and Wild, the project facilitated interaction across various backgrounds and generations.
“For the students, learning [the alumni’s] stories validated their parents’ stories,” says Dustin Keller, a teacher at John Oliver.
Process over product
The SHBIA Art Plan looks not only to help build a distinct community identity through art projects, but also to strengthen relationships within the community through the active participation of its members.
“I found that when you’re doing an art project and when you’re working with artists, it brings out a whole different cross-section of society. It touches different generations. There’s a playfulness about it,” says Faehndrich-Findlay.
For more information visit http://www.southhillcommunity.
