Teresa Pocock
Teresa Pocock is an artist and poet living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. In 2016, she won a DTES Small Arts Grant from the Vancouver Foundation which enabled her to create her first book, Pretty Amazing: How I found myself in the Downtown Eastside. Teresa exhibited 18 “Pretty Amazing” artworks as 4ft x 5ft posters in her first solo show at Gallery Gachet which launched on June 29.
As a self-advocate with Down syndrome, Teresa presented her story, I Love My Human Rights, at the 2016 Canadian Down Syndrome Conference in Montreal. Teresa is a member of the BC Civil Liberties Association, Gallery Gachet, Inclusion BC, Family Support Institute of BC, and the Canadian Down Syndrome Society. She loves chicken pie, word play and spotting the big boats in the Burrard Inlet.
Pretty Amazing: How I found myself in the Downtown Eastside
What does Vancouvers Downtown Eastside look like through the eyes of an artist”an artist who also happens to have Down syndrome? Teresa Pococks colourful art and poetry lets us see, hear and feel it from her unique viewpoint.
The heart of Pretty Amazing is the unexpected story of Teresa finding herself as an artist and poet. Previously, Teresas artistic expression was discouraged and ridiculed.
Her opening poem, I Am Alive, packs added punch when you know that her future was written off a few years ago when she lived in Ontario. In 2013, Teresa was forced into an Ontario nursing home against her will. The Ontario health-care system had wrapped her in”as disability advocate Paul Young aptly describes it “a cocoon of impossibility. Against her wishes, Teresas liberty and freedom was traded for a single bed in an end-of-life nursing home. It was a violation of her human rights. She did not want to be there. Teresa had things to do, places to go, and people to meet!
In the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Teresa has found her voice. It is a voice that talks about feeling butterflies, but still finds the courage to fly. Teresa has, in her own words, been reborn in Gastown. Pretty Amazing: How I found myself in the Downtown Eastside is available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats, and as an Apple iBook.
