Internships At VACS
VACS has partnered with the University of British Columbia to provide students with the oppurtuinty to engage with their local community.
If you are interested in undertaking an internship wth VACS, please visit UBC's Faculty of Arts Internship page at students.arts.ubc.ca.
Special Thanks to:
Why Intern? A Student's Personal Story
"I started my career at the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society as an intern through UBC's Arts Internship Program. The experience has been such a blessing. I am now more confident in my writing abilities and now I have the tools to build meaningful relationships within the community.
I am still a proud member of the VACS team and am always looking forward to new opportunities. "
~ Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky
(present Executive Assistant)
Canada Summer Job At VACS
"Throughout my time at the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society, I was able to engage in a broad variety of experiences. Having the opportunity to write a variety of articles, plan and facilitate several public events, help my coworkers with peer review, create graphics for the organization, edit videos, and so many more experiences. Being able to engage in such a broad variety of tasks and activities helped me to spread my creative wings and open my eyes to new talents that I didn't know that I even had.
Overall, I was able to familiarize myself with the ins and outs of article writing. From an uncertain start, I was able to learn opportunity after opportunity and peer into myself in order to find my own voice. I learned some crucial skills in how to prepare for articles and figure out a flow that creates an efficient experience in article writing. I’m very proud to say that my final article for the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society, Rediscovering Plant Intelligence With Dr. Lily Liu, is one of my favourite articles that I have written thus far. I am certain that I will take these skills into preparing for my university work moving forward.
Many times, I was thrust into trying new experiences. I was very new to a lot of the things I was able to do at the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society. Editing videos and publishing articles in the public sphere was something that I never had the chance to do before. Same with planning public events, which I haven’t done in several years. I was able to familiarize myself with platforms such as Eventbrite and Lightworks in order to create a product that was up to the standards of my employer and our organization as a whole. Navigating and balancing my work along with the priorities of the organization and learning more about how to navigate those spaces was also an important aspect of my working life that I was able to learn.
Getting out of my comfort zone, meeting people, and spreading my creative wings. I have so many opportunities and getting to experience each and every one of them helped me to be a better person and get to build up a strong foundation to bring into each new experience I will have moving forward. I cannot thank the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society’s Executive Director Keiko Honda and my wonderful coworkers that I have met along the way for the knowledge, enthusiasm, and kindness that they have shared with me throughout my journey."
Allan Chan (UBC, ANTHROPOLOGY)
Assistant to the Executive Director
Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society
The first thing I need to say is gratitude: a deep and profound thankfulness to VACS and to Keiko for the best working experience of my life. When I try to reflect on what happened, I can’t help but smile--so much did happen after all…
Out of the things I got out of working with Keiko, I think it is not new skills necessarily which to me are most important; but rather a new outlook I have grown thanks to her and to VACS.
Many have said that ‘Art can come in many forms’ and this is a sentiment that I knew in an intellectual sense. Sometimes I was able to feel it a little in such things as nature too. But it was not until working with Keiko that I was able to truly understand this and see Art everywhere.
There is a difference between knowing and understanding; anyone can know a thing, but to understand it involves incorporating that knowledge into yourself, adding it to the great web of experience and thought and feelings: making it a part of who you are. This is what it means to understand. And I did not understand that ‘Art is everywhere’--I just knew it.
Now, because of Keiko and VACS, I have been able to take this knowledge and incorporate it into my life and my being. I am a more complete and better person because of the experience. I have a newfound confidence in myself as well.
Most important however, I have renewed my sense of Wonder. To Wonder at the world is the most important human feeling; it is a state of facing the absurdity or beauty of the world and just being amazed at existing. Sometimes, Wonder must be cultivated and sometimes it must burn and be renewed from its ashes. This is what VACS gave me. This is what Keiko gave me. I can not thank either enough.
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Dax Hamouth (UBC, Philosophy), Writer 2022
As someone who has graduated with a Bachelors once, worked for a handful of years, then completed another certificate in a different discipline, I am in a way starting my second life. Working with the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS) felt like a gateway into this second life. It gave me the opportunity to work creatively for the first time; to use, develop, and learn skills that I had been trained in in my most recent degree, but that I had been cultivating for half of my life.
Not only was I able to use my visual art skills to help express Keiko's projects, but I was also challenged to pick up new skills to complement our goals. I looked into animation and taught myself to use the Wix website builder to better tell our visual story. Though there were many things to learn and do, and there were many bumps along the way, I'm thankful that Keiko challenged me to do better and more for our projects.
In other aspects too VACS has taught me important things. Being involved in its projects allowed me to understand first hand the value of relationships and connecting with many kinds of people across life's spectrum. I admire Keiko for the way that she connects with so many people around her and brings people together, and to be a part of it even for a short while was a special privilege. Like the warm afterglow of a sunset, these subtle yet lasting impressions will stay with me for a long time.
Working with VACS is a special and rare opportunity. I'm grateful to have been a part of its creative vision and its resilient and lively spirit. I look forward to taking what I've learned into my second life, and I wish the best for Keiko and the future VACS teams. I am sure that they will continue to embolden the community through their inquisitive and heartfelt projects.
Lilly Lin, BA
writer, editor, graphic artist, 2022
One of the main lessons I have learned from the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society is the importance of individual effort. So many of the goals and tasks I had been given at VACS required that I complete a project mostly on my own. Without my own effort many projects, including the projects under the care of others, would not have seen the light of day. This is the first job I have done that gave me this sense of personal responsibility and accomplishment.
It is through this journey of responsibility and accomplishment that I gained many skills as well. I practiced decent meeting and organization skills to ensure that work was done in a good timely fashion. I developed my imagination and adaptation abilities to solve unexpected problems on the fly. Finally, perhaps the most useful skill I obtained, it gave me the confidence to walk into different work situations prepared to complete most tasks I have been given.
From my experience with the Colloquium, I have learned one of the organization’s main objectives is supporting artists in the community. Having come away from my job with skills, responsibility, and accomplishment, I can wholeheartedly say that VACS succeeds at its goal. As both a young artist and professional, I see clear and tangible benefits from my experience with the Colloquium. I wish the best to all affiliated with VACS and can only hope to work with an organization this good again.
Jonathan Pineda, BA (English Literature, UBC)
Video edtior, 2022
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