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Unexpected glimpse of hope in the DTES
Vancouver - October 18
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Kiss on the Steps by Hannah Walker.
The 2007 Hope in Shadows Downtown Eastside Portrait Calendar
will go on sale on October 26.
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The Downtown Eastside is not a place Vancouverites
usually think of as a place children might call home, but several
of the top places in this year’s Hope in Shadows Photography
Contest went to local children.
Prize money, a certificate and an enlarged copy of
each picture was presented by Pivot Legal Society lawyer David Eby
to all exhibition winners at the annual award ceremony at the Carnegie
Community Centre yesterday.
“There is so much strength in this neighbourhood,
despite everything that its residents must endure,” says Eby.
“Many of the photograph subjects and the photographers themselves
are under housed or homeless, yet an observer would never guess
that from the hope these images convey.”
The community-building contest has consistently grown
in popularity since its inception in 2003. With this year’s
theme of “My Home and Friends,” the focus on housing
shows people who live outside the Downtown Eastside that there is
a real community in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood.
The 2006 contest’s overall winner, 14-year-old
Hannah Walker, explained how she got her winning photograph of her
neighbours Desiree (three years old), Evan (one year old) and Samjan,
her cat: “This was taken in front of Aurora’s house
on the front steps. These kids are the youngest of the 16 kids on
the block and are best friends.”
Hannah, who is in Grade 10 at Britannia Secondary
and plans to become a professional photographer or actor when she
grows up, loves her neighbourhood. “I moved to the Downtown
Eastside when I was one year old, and grew up here with my four
younger sisters. I have grown close to the history, character, people
and sense of community here in the Downtown Eastside, but after
all it is my home! I love it here.”
In July, 200 cameras were distributed to low-income
residents of the Downtown Eastside. The images captured by the participants
are raw and real, yet unfailing in their hope and spirit. The photos
submitted were judged by a volunteer panel of professional photographers,
who selected the top 42 images from more than 3,000 photographs.
The top 42 were then voted on by community members
at the Carnegie Centre in September. A selection of the winning
photographs will be featured in Hope In Shadows, the 2007
Downtown Eastside Portrait Calendar.
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