We were talking awhile ago about the Federal Building on 4th and Argyle the other day and we wondered what it could be used for? The building just missed being sold again The Huu-ay-aht looked seriously a the facility but it in the end it did not serve their purpose. I am hopeful that some one will come forward and bring the building back into use, but until then how about an out of the box idea? We first thought of a business that could be placed their with no real frontage nor street level windows not a purely retail space. How about a firm of some kind maybe a design firm or professional space. The cost of upkeep would be quite high and getting a firm large enough to accommodate the large space would be difficult to say the least. So we thought maybe a Gallery the Port Alberni Art Gallery that sounds nice. It is after all what any major city has so why not us. Well it would fall into the malaise of the Heritage and culture budget of the city already has, and be adding to the already controversial spending that tax payers would be unlikely willing to stomach. I am a former artist and I love the idea but I accept we have not gotten to that level yet. We continued and thought what best suits this building was possibly an institution of some kind. We thought education, we thought youth. What do young people respond to? We thought multimedia videos and music and graphic design. Hey what about a technical institute? The community wants young people to stay and work well then how about interesting them in something they already love? Should be an easy sell right? Its benefits would be education in the field of story telling especially important to the First Nations of the Valley. It would give our young people access to training in the skills to empower our youth in making Music/ Video and Graphic Design and allowing for a better presence in mainstream culture getting jobs behind and in front of the camera. It would benefit Port Alberni by allowing musicians and artist a space to record and edit their work and build on our already stellar local talent. It could also be seen as a benefit to production companies who use our lovely valley for movies and T.V. having trained personnel so handy could be seen as an asset to increase shoots in the valley. Possibly bringing spinoffs in other trades. Who knows just an idea?
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 06:05:30 +0000
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