WTS - What the Surrey #6: Canada’s Cultural Capital
Historically, it’s been more famous for things like car theft and strip malls but now, the city of Surrey is being recognized by the Federal government for its leadership in arts and culture!
The Department of Heritage has named Surrey the 2008 Cultural Capital of Canada, joining the ranks of past winners like Edmonton, Saskatoon and Toronto. The annual award comes with $2-million worth of funding for artistic and community projects. [News1130]
Being proclaimed a city of status alongside Edmonton, I’m not too happy about, but I’m pretty glad that Surrey is getting some recognition for its diversity even though the little article above leads off in a less-than-complimentary manner. Downtown Vancouver paints a lovely glossy brochure of culturalism, and they succeed in letting the world know that this is indeed a melting pot, but some of suburbia just isn’t given enough credit in that regard.
Those of us that grew up in these neighbourhoods know that yes, okay you *will* see a mullet at some point during the day, and your car probably *has* been broken into… sometimes twice in once week… but you’ll probably also hear about 10 different accents and 5 languages in any public place. You can also see store marquees and city street signs in different languages and drive by temples, mosques, chapels and parishes within a span of 10 minutes. You also can’t go a week without some kind of festival, Surrey is all about the festivals. Celebrating ethnic holidays, traditions and all of it involves amazing food.
For a taste of what’s coming up in Canada’s new Cultural Capital, visit Surrey.cato peruse upcoming events such as:
Nature Matters Summer Fest @ Bear Creek Park, July 14th
Surrey High School Film Festival @ Surrey Arts Centre, June 28th
Canada Day Festival @ Cloverdale Amphitheatre, July 1
Canada Cup @ Softball City, International Women’s Fast Pitch, June 30th to July 8th
Jashne Zahid @ Surrey Arts Centre, South Asian community poetry, recitals and song, July 14th
Cloverdale Blueberry Festival, August 11th
You can also pick up a copy of the 99 Days of Summer guide (pdf) from Tourism Surrey.
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June 26th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
That’s pretty cool. Nanaimo was also named for cities 50,000-125,000 (I think those are the correct numbers)
It’ll be interesting to see where/how they are going to spend the money
June 26th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Cool news. Glad to see the lower mainland’s shining example of multiculturalism getting some positive recommendation for a change.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:30 am
[...] couple months ago, Surrey was awarded with the official designation as one of the 2008 Cultural Capitals of Canada. The program, funded [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 11:58 am
[...] event like Winterfest, Surrey’s Fusion Festival is absolutely FREE to everyone. Simply enjoy Canada’s 2008 Cultural Capital and if you’re still not convinced, I’ll have blog posts and Flickr photos being [...]