Winter Arts Festival Vancouver’s award-winning Winter Arts Festival will return to the city from Feb. 11 to 27 after debuting last year in the middle of the pandemic. Produced by the team behind Vancouver Mural Festival, the event will fill public plazas in downtown Vancouver from Canada Place to Science World with 11 augmented reality…

PuSh Fest -“Aalaapi” “The audience will feel they are foreigners thrown into a northern village. Not everything is given to them right away. It is a show about the art of listening. If people slow down their rhythm, they can get access to the culture,” says Laurence Dauphinais, director of Aalaapi. Aalaapi is a collaborative…

Protocols in place to keep us healthy from COVID can be mentally damaging. And with Blue Monday – the third Monday in January considered the most depressing day of the entire year – approaching, it is an opportunity to revisit the concept of “Blue Monday” in regards to mental health and spread awareness of the…

The year 2021, much like the preceding year, brought its fair share of trials and tribulations. In addition to the ongoing pandemic, our province has experienced extreme climate change in the form of wildfires and floods, an increased focus on pressing social issues and a full-throated turn to technology as a way to cope and…

December 5 is United Nations (UN) International Volunteer Day. The UN General Assembly officially mandated the day in 1985 to celebrate the contributions of both volunteers and their organizations, as well as to showcase their efforts in their communities. The focus of International Volunteer Day is to thank volunteers worldwide and to highlight their work…

November 23 is celebrated as Fibonacci day because when the date is written in the mm/dd format (11/23), the digits in the date form a Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3. The sequence displays a simple pattern: every two numbers, when added together, equal the following number. Another uncanny pattern is that the ratio of any two sequential…

World Science Day for Peace and Development is coming up next month. Simon Fraser University (SFU)’s Data for Good initiative is applying big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to finding solutions for societal problems like homelessness and addiction. Julian Somers, PhD, of SFU is at the forefront of the initiative. The United Nation (UN) celebrates…

Vancouver Writers Fest will return to Granville Island from Oct 18 to Oct 24 with a long lineup of exciting in-person, online and hybrid events featuring celebrated authors from all over the world. “There is a little bit of something for everyone; there are events for kids. Our mission statement is to connect people to…

This year marks a special occasion for the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) as it turns 40 years old. VIFF’s 2021 edition will run from Oct 1 to 11 in a hybrid format showcasing a diverse selection of more than 110 feature films, 77 shorts and 20 events online and offline. With theatres reopened since…

Calls to include British Columbia’s Black history in the public-school curriculum have grown over the past year. Many Black British Columbians have said that the province is not doing enough to ensure people are taught about the history of Black people in B.C. “When I first came to this province, and for much of the…

A recent study, co-authored by University of British Columbia (UBC) professor Yue Qian and Lancaster University lecturer Yang Hu, has revealed the importance of face-to-face interaction as well as the limitations of virtual communication when it comes to maintaining mental health among older adults (those aged 60 and above). The study, which draws data from…

Coastal Jazz After cancelling their festival in 2020 due to the pandemic, Coastal Jazz returns to present the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival from June 25 to July 4, 2021. Breaking from the recent pandemic-era tradition of pre-recorded performances, the festival will be streaming artist performances live from several Vancouver venues, as well as hosting…