As Dave Harvey retires from his co-leadership position at Park People, he reflects on the incredible journey since founding the organization in 2011.
Park People’s Executive Director, Erika Nikolai, has been honoured with the Distinguished Individual Award from World Urban Parks—an international recognition that celebrates her leadership and the growing national movement Park People has helped build here in Canada.
Learn more about the impact of Canada’s large urban parks’ stewardship initiatives—from healthier ecosystems and stronger community well-being to essential support for city services.
In East Vancouver’s Champlain Heights, we sat down with two organizations leading a grassroots effort to restore native forests and build community.
Pumpkin parades are a creative way to celebrate local creativity and give carved jack-o’-lanterns a second life. Here’s a step-by-step guide to make your pumpkin parade a smashing success.
How colonialism plays out in park practices and how we can work together to embed reconciliation and decolonization.
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Founding Artistic Director at Still Moon Arts Society
Carmen Rosen is an artist, singer, community organizer and Founding Artistic Director of Still Moon Arts Society. She has Art degrees and diplomas from UBC and Emily Carr. She has received the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award, the Queen’s Jubilee Award, and the BC Achievement Award for her art with the community. She has spent the past 25 years focussing her creative projects on the Still Creek Watershed in her Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood on the un-ceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and T’seil-Waututh people. Her work is inspired by nature, her passion for environmental sustainability and her love of working with people.
Through Still Moon and in collaboration with many community partners, Carmen founded the Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival (now in its 23rd year) that celebrates nature, harvest abundance, and intercultural community creativity. Highlights from the past decade: 2016-19, and 2024 Joining the Indigenous led Wild Salmon Caravan to honour and support wild salmon as the centre of local Indigenous cultures; In 2018 she was a co-lead artist for Birds on Parade for the International Ornithological Congress and the Vancouver Bird Festival; In 2019-2020 she collaborated with mycologist and artist Willoughby Arevalo on ephemeral eco-sculptures Mycelial Connections, Fruiting Bodies weaving willow inoculated with mycelium to fruit and decay to build the soil; Rosen and Arevalo’s most recent collaboration is Beaver Pondering Lodging, 2022 – 2024, where they spent three years growing and weaving with living willow to create a giant willow beaver and her “Dodge Lodge” RV on the banks of Still Creek as a commentary on habitat loss for wildlife and for humans in the city; In the summers of 2023/4 Carmen and the community worked with Mud Girl Clare Kenny to build a cob garden shed to lean about natural building; the cob garden shed supports working in Colour Me Local Dye garden (2018 – present) where we grow plants to make natural dyes and herbal salves.
Beyond Still Moon – In 2016 Carmen created a major public art sculpture “Still Here” at Skyway Towers Plaza on Kingsway in Vancouver. In 2017 she was an artist in residence at CACIS Centre for Art and Sustainability in Spain.