The ArtWalk Vancouver Society was founded to provide a platform to promote and aid visual artists in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Chinatown and Gastown community. Our mission is to present an annual event of the highest standard for the enrichment of cultural life in Vancouver. The ArtWalk also serves as a catalyst to arouse wider public interest in the arts and to encourage artistic dialogue and cultural exchange.

The ArtWalk Vancouver Society’s vision is to generate a dynamic,entertaining, and often challenging series of events which celebrate visual art while exploring and expanding the possibilities of art and its role in community and community engagement. To be more specific:

• The artists who participate in ArtWalk Vancouver 2010 are eclectic in their artistic influences and aesthetics; moreover, they are all artistically and intellectually engaged.

• All of our programming decisions are made by people with knowledge of contemporary art whom are equally engaged in the developing art culture of Vancouver. ArtWalk functions as a lively contribution to the ongoing development of Vancouver’s art culture, and creates opportunity to explore the possibilities of art, which germinates new work and ideas.

• Our primary focus is visual art. Working with independent and smaller galleries as well as larger spaces.

• With our 5 ArtWalk 'Pop Up' galleries we bring interrogative contemporary artists into public space, expanding the traditional concepts of where art belongs and its functional and active possibilities.

• We want to engage young and old audiences and artists to foster excitement about the vibrant contemporary art scene and other aesthetically and intellectually challenging forms, to create a welcoming environment for people who are new to these forms, as well as a space where practitioners can push their own limits.

• We acknowledge and support the work of artists, studios and galleries within the boundaries of the DTAW and other events corresponding within the ArtWalk Vancouver timeline

We aim not to duplicate the work of other festivals or walks but to intensify and deepen our explorations in the fields where we have special iwwnterest and knowledge.

• We want the ArtWalk to be recognized and understood as an affirmation of our indebtedness to everyone who spends their life creating.