“There are few organizations on the West Coast as radical and calculatedly unpredictable as UNIT/PITT Projects, thanks to Kay’s leadership. I am excited to build on UNIT/PITT’s legacy with programming and community initiatives that interrogate the very structure and purpose of artist-run centres, and serve to support emerging artists and organizers.”
– Brit Bachmann, incoming Director of UNIT/PITT Projects

UNIT/PITT Projects’ Board of Directors is excited to announce Brit Bachmann as the organization’s new Executive Director. Bachmann is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer whose practice includes ceramics, playwriting, radio art and community organizing with a history of reinvigorating arts organizations, instigating critical public dialogue and working with diverse and emerging artists and writers. Bachmann is the outgoing Communications Coordinator for Capture Photography Festival and the Communications and Marketing Assistant at The Cinematheque.

Bachmann is well known for her inimitable work as the Editor-in-Chief at Discorder Magazine (CiTR 101.9FM) from 2015-2018 where she led a critical rebrand of the magazine, shifting its focus from music to community activism, social justice, creative writing and visual art. She prioritized Indigenous, queer, POC and women’s voices and highlighted issues around harm reduction, sexual assault, racism, accountability, labour, and housing.

In keeping with UNIT/PITT Projects’ ethos of “unruly criticality”, Bachmann will also bring her experience as a researcher on gentrification in Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside with W.W.A.S., and as a co-organizer of Bite The Hand That Feeds, a forum on art and developer money held at 221A in 2018.

Bachmann’s induction to UNIT/PITT Projects marks the end of Kay Higgins’ time as Executive Director, a position that she has held since 2010. The board is especially indebted to Higgins’ tireless work in establishing UNIT/PITT Projects as Vancouver’s leading space for radical critical discourse. Her dedicated leadership, community presence, and relentless support for emergent practices through experimental programming and rigorous publishing initiatives stand as a legacy the board wishes to recognize.

Notable projects initiated by Higgins during her tenure include UNIT/PITT Radio, the 2055 Project for UNIT/PITT’s 40 Year Anniversary, the return of Wrong Wave Festival and ISSUE Magazine, the Art  & Community Reading Group series, the Ill Repute and What Future series of commissioned works, the #tearitdown2018 poster project, and more recently the relocation of UNIT/PITT Projects to 8EAST in 2018. Bachmann’s directorship coincides with the first year of UNIT/PITT Projects’ shift to a new non-exhibition model of programming.

“I was extremely fortunate to have the support of UNIT/PITT’s board, membership, and community during my tenure as director, and of all of the artists, curators, and volunteers who agreed on the need for spaces and organizations that do something other than reproduce stale administrative models and timid culture. I’m very pleased that Brit Bachmann is now there for the Pitt’s next round of risks, transformations, challenges, and successes.”
– Kay Higgins, outgoing Director of UNIT/PITT Projects