94 TRAVEL+LEISURE | OCTOBER 2019
issues as well. We stepped from a block crowded
with IV drug users to another lined with chic
bistros reinterpreting Asian cuisine. In between,
we unearthed the artist-run Access Gallery, where
Karen Zalamea’s massive photographic work
Subarctic Phase held us in its chilly grip, and
Centre A, which features contemporary Asian art.
Both spaces receive partial funding from the
Canadian government, which has been crucial in
keeping art alive in the current economic climate.
“Culture has been made in these small nonprofit
organizations,” said Eric Fredericksen, a public
arts administrator who works in Vancouver.
The new Polygon Gallery, across the harbor in
the city of North Vancouver, exemplifies the ways
federal funding and cosmopolitan awareness can
come together. The gallery has exhibited some of
the most vital artists working today, including
Christian Marclay and Jeff Wall, with an emphasis
on photography, film, and video. The space is
gorgeous—twisty passageways opening into
impressive volumes. It’s up there with New York’s
new Whitney Museum in the way it places great
artwork into a dynamic visual relationship with the
city. The sweeping views of the Shipyards District
and the shadowy interior spaces combine to show
the work to its best advantage.
A
FEW WEEKS LATER, I returned to
Vancouver with my family—my husband,
Bruce, our art-crazed daughter, Lucy, and our son,
Willie. We happened to arrive on Canada Day, and
Bruce and I insisted that we attend the public
ceremony to see new citizens sworn in at an
immigration office in Yaletown. The kids groaned,
but watching the event made us all a bit misty in a
civics-lesson kind of way. Even more so when,
at the opening of the ceremony, officials
acknowledged that we stood on First Nations
land. The city sits upon three territories that have
never been ceded by treaty.