Toast, Jams & Anti-Fascist Karaoke — with Andrea Creamer

An artist, community organizer, and a former staff member and longtime friend of SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Andrea Creamer joins Below the Radar to catch up with your host, Am Johal. They talk grassroots arts organizing, her experiences as a fine arts student in SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts and at the University of Toronto, and taking a community-centred approach to healthcare and wellness. Andrea has a long history of working in community and bringing arts programming to the public. They chat about her involvement in the artist-run Toast Collective in East Van, as well as Super Cool Tuesdays, a community arts program Andrea facilitated for many years out of the Interurban Gallery in the Downtown Eastside. Bringing a lens of centring community care and access to arts and culture, Andrea is deeply interested in how community connection and social prescribing can promote community health and wellbeing. She and Am talk about her work with the Burnaby Primary Care Networks, which brings together the City, the health authority, and the community to support access to primary care and allied health services, as well as vital social supports and services. Full Episode Details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/139-andrea-creamer.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/139-andrea-creamer.html Resources: — The Toast Collective: http://thetoast.org/ — The Arts and Cultural Workers Union: https://www.valucoop.ca/acwu — Anti-Fascist Karaoke Lounge Party (Access Gallery, 2018): https://accessgallery.ca/event/anti-fascist-karaoke-lounge-party-film-screenings — Burnaby Primary Care Networks: https://burnabypcn.ca/ — Burnaby Community Fridge (now at SFU Burnaby!): https://burnabypcn.ca/allied-health/fridge/ Photo use in cover graphic is by Charles Stankievech. Bio: Andrea Creamer is a renter, worker, community organizer, and interdisciplinary artist. She is interested about the intersection of politics, urbanization, community-based art practices, and is invested in creating equitable opportunities for systemic and social change through the arts. Andrea holds a Master’s of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and a BFA from Simon Fraser University. Her art practice reflects on forms of protest, the mechanisms that produce social spaces, and the ephemeral and always shifting character of socially-based practices. She currently lives in Tkaranto/Toronto with her elderly cat, Goldie. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Toast, Jams & Anti-Fascist Karaoke — with Andrea Creamer” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 26, 2021, https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/139-andrea-creamer.html