Thank you for tuning in to U/P’s programming over this last year. Behind the updates and social media posts is a dedicated staff and board of directors, but they haven’t all been properly announced. Leading up to our Annual General Meeting on August 5, 2021, we want to share a long overdue introduction to the current staff. Thanks to COVID_19 relief supplements and a project grant, we were able to welcome Lauren Lavery and Rachel Lau to the team earlier this year.

Lauren has been the Communications and Development Assistant since January, and has directed the branding and communications for La Commune 2021. She is a writer, editor and visual artist, and a familiar face for anyone who frequents Vancouver Art/Book Fair. Lauren is the founder and editor of Peripheral Review, an online platform of exhibition reviews of Canadian emerging artists and spaces. She is also the current Managing Editor of The Capilano Review. She holds a BFA with honours from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. 

Rachel is UNIT/PITT’s Program Coordinator, a part-time position made possible thanks to BC Arts Council’s Pivot Program. Their first major project with U/P is coordinating the second edition of I spy.. They are a multidisciplinary artist, writer and radio producer, and another familiar face at art book fairs. In addition to their own practice of audio storytelling, film photography and zine-making, Rachel is co-librarian of Queer Reads Library, a mobile library of independently published queer books and zines based in Hong Kong and Vancouver. They are a recent graduate of the media studies program with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian migration studies, at the University of British Columbia. 

U/P has also expanded its project staff through the launch of ReIssue.pub with VIVO Media Arts Centre, funded by Vancouver Foundation’s Systems Change Grant. Kara Stanton recently joined Editor Casey Wei as ReIssue’s first Assistant Editor. Dani Rozali will soon conclude her internship through Shumka Centre’s Art Apprenticeship Network, having curated a set of FreeSchool workshop modules with Vee CR, Angelic Goldsky, and Reyhan Yazdani.

Thank you to our funders, BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver, Audain Foundation and Vancouver Foundation, and to our members and donors for supporting the growth of our team. 

Brit Bachmann, 
Director

To learn more about U/P’s Director, click here

Thank you to Ryan Ermacora for the photographs.