29th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl Highlights Diversity of
Artist Studio Space Across Eastside Arts District
Vancouver’s beloved arts festival will feature highest
number of registered artist buildings in the event’s history
Eastside Arts Society (EAS) proudly supports the participation of more than 500 artists in its 29th annual Eastside Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design & Craft Festival from November 20-23, 2025. The festival will welcome visitors into the studios and workshops of Eastside artists in more than 80 registered buildings, including 20 new buildings to the Crawl – marking a 25 per cent increase in options for exploring all that is on display across the Eastside Arts District. This year also marks the beginning of a three-year partnership with the Audain Foundation as the Culture Crawl’s presenting partner, recognizing the importance of creative spaces and experimentation to a vibrant and healthy arts ecosystem.
“We are thrilled to welcome returning and new visitors to the 29th year of the Eastside Culture Crawl to experience the incredible breadth of artistic practice that happens right here, in the Eastside Arts District,” says Esther Rausenberg, Artistic Director of Eastside Arts Society. “Vancouver is home to a growing number of artists who continue to create in the face of tremendous economic hardships and reduced access to studio space. Their unwavering passion, ingenuity, and resourcefulness results in a richness of unique and diverse production and working artist spaces, creating exciting new opportunities for art lovers to explore, to discover, and to be inspired.”
One of the city’s largest and most popular cultural events of the fall season, the Culture Crawl open studios attract and inspire more than 45,000 visitors annually. Encompassing the region bounded by Columbia Street, 1st Avenue, Victoria Drive, and the Waterfront, the Eastside Arts District (EAD) is the most concentrated area of artists, designers, performers, craftspeople, and culture producers in Vancouver and is known nationally as an area rich with creativity and inspiration. The festival offers visitors a window into the artistic practices of artists living and/or working in Vancouver’s Eastside Arts District (EAD,) representing creators specializing in painting, jewelry, sculpture, furniture, leather goods, photography, glass works, textiles, and more.
As part of the 2025 Culture Crawl, EAS will host a series of ancillary events, including the annual Take Flight fundraiser, which runs until November 4, 2025 and makes up a critical component of funding for the free festival. Guests who purchase tickets to Art Roulette, an art draw featuring 30 pieces donated by EAD artists, are guaranteed to go home with an original piece of art. Take Flight also features a silent auction, which opens on October 25, 2025, and features a series of items donated by community partners, including an exclusive curator-led tour of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a three-night stay at The Ivy on Parker Guest House, and much more.
The festival will also host the 2025 Preview Exhibition, a multi-venue, salon-style curated exhibition that explores a variety of media, formats, techniques, and styles. This year’s theme of “Passion, Reason, Idiocy” invited participating artists to submit works that speak to the emotional, rational, and foolish elements of their lived experience as working artists. The exhibition will feature juried works from 78 artists at three venues from November 6-30, 2025: Pendulum Gallery, The Cultch Gallery, and Alternative Creations Gallery.
Full programming details include:
PREVIEW EXHIBITION
Passion, Reason, Idiocy
Nov. 6-30, 2025 (Dates vary depending on venue)
Exhibit Opening Receptions Nov. 6, from 6-8pm
Pendulum Gallery (885 W Georgia St)
Alternative Creations Gallery (1659 Venables St)
The Cultch (1895 Venables St)
This year’s multi-venue curated preview exhibition asked artists to get personal. During a time of global change, artists need to share their creative vision of the world, and artists were asked to share their experiences with passion, reason, idiocy, or all of the above. The exhibition will feature 78 EAD visual artists, selected by a jury. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events
TAKE FLIGHT FUNDRAISER
Oct. 7-Nov. 4, 2025
In celebration of 29 years of Vancouver’s beloved art festival, the EAS holds Take Flight –an art based fundraising initiative for the 2025 Culture Crawl festival, featuring an online silent auction, and the return of the wildly popular Art Roulette draw.
This year’s silent auction features some extraordinary items, including an exclusive curator-led tour of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a three-night hotel stay, a $350 Fluevog gift certificate, a double magnum from Burrowing Owl winner, and much more. The auction will open Oct. 25 and closes Nov. 4.
This year’s Art Roulette fundraiser includes in-person viewing at EAS (716 E Hastings St.) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from Oct. 21 to Nov. 4, from 10am to 3pm. Each ticket holder will go home with one of 30 original pieces of artwork, donated by Eastside artists. The Art Roulette draw happens Nov. 5. Preview the artworks and purchase your tickets at https://culturecrawl.ca/events/takeflight
MOVING ART: Unity
Online Premiere Nov. 6, 2025
Projecting at Lumiere Festival Nov. 13-16, 2025
The 12th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl Film and Video Exhibition, in partnership with the Lumière Festival, will be projected outdoors nightly from November 13-16, 2025 (location TBD). Short films from 8 participating artists Ethan White, Garrett Andrew Chong, Cheree Lang, Fatima Travassos, Debra Gloeckler, Rashi Sethi, Isaac Forsland, and Nisha Platzer explore the theme of “Unity,” selected by Moving Art curators Esther Rausenberg, Kate MacDonald and Sierra MacTavish. Full details at culturecrawl.ca/events
TALKING ART
Nov. 5, 12 & 13, 2025
This year’s series of Talking Art panels will feature three events, and will be shared online at culturecrawl.ca/events:
Talk 1 – Collective Perspectives in Analogue Film
Nov. 5 at 7pm
Filmmakers Nisha Platzer and Isaac Forsland present recent analogue works that embrace the collaborative spirit of collective filmmaking. Through shared processes, layered authorship, and tactile experimentation, these films reflect on how analogue practices can foster vulnerability, trust, and new modes of storytelling.Curated and moderated by Kate MacDonald.
Talk 2 – in situ: finding place
Nov. 12 at 7pm
Artists Mackenzie Perras and Jes Hanzelkova explore artist practices that rely on the use of place, whether as a source for their concepts, art medium and materials, or site for performance. Curated and moderated by Samantha Mains.
Talk 3 – Creating in Community
Nov. 13 at 7pm
This talk features artists Jai Sallay-Carrington and Gina D’Aloisio and explores artists whose practices have been changed by the influence of others, through participation in artist residencies or social media. By putting themselves out there, their perspectives on identity and creation have changed. Curated and moderated by Samantha Mains.
Full details of Eastside Culture Crawl events, artists, talks, and locations can be found at culturecrawl.ca/events.
About the Eastside Arts Society (eastsideartssociety.ca)
The Eastside Arts Society (EAS) is a visual and performing arts organization dedicated to connecting the public with the arts. EAS produces the annual Culture Crawl Visual Arts, Design and Craft Festival held in November that involves artists on Vancouver’s Eastside opening their studio to the public. The event involves painters, jewelers, sculptors, furniture makers, weavers, potters, printmakers, photographers, and glassblowers; from emerging artists to those internationally established. EAS produces additional programming including the Talking Art artist panel series and Moving Art film and video art series, juried exhibits, and Studio 101 free art workshops for Eastside students in Culture Crawl artist studios
In 2021, EAS began a pioneering new initiative: developing an Eastside Arts District (EAD). The EAD will transform the arts and cultural assets in the Eastside from an informal and grassroots network of stakeholders, into a formalized organization with stable funding and secure, long-term facilities for artists and cultural venues.
| LISTING INFORMATION | 29th Annual Eastside Culture Crawl |
| Dates: | November 20-23, 2025 Thursday & Friday, 5–10pm Saturday & Sunday, 11am–6pm |
| Address: | In-person at various Eastside Locations Between Columbia St. 2nd Ave., Victoria Drive, and the Waterfront (check out the map) |
| Website: | culturecrawl.ca |