Mount Pleasant Community Fence Project

Mount Pleasant Community Fence Project was conceived by Pat Beaton and Lycia Trouton and was produced by project team members Beaton, Haruko Okano, Merle Addison, and Charmian Bullen. The Mount Pleasant Community Fence Project built a picket fence around the Fraser Street Community Gardens at Fraser and 8th, each one designed and carved by members of the community. The project consisted of workshops, an exhibition of the completed pickets, and the installation and opening of the fence. It was an early example of community-engaged practice in Vancouver and was lauded for both its process and its product.

The Fraser Street Community Gardens existed in one of the most economically disadvantaged communities outside the DTES. Because of the multicultural nature of the community, promotion for the workshops was published in six languages and there were translators on hand to aid in the process. The team managed to bring together a very diverse community in its realization and it became an important model for much of the work that developed later. Working with community groups, the Community Centre and Neighborhood House, they were able to reach deep inside the community. The project is still the biggest community engaged project grunt has attempted and put us inside communities that were definitely outside the arts community. Because it was the first permanent work, it raised many challenges in the process of working with City Hall. Artists Pat Beaton, Lycia Trouton, and Haruko Okano went on to develop practices in community-engaged arts which continue to this day.