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Grace Nickel is a 2023 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Video directed by Jody Racicot and Aaron Adetuyi.

A presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.

The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm'slength Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."

For more information, visit: https://en.ggarts.ca

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Transcript:

That’s a really good way for me of memorializing, somehow taking what’s lost into my work.

Using the tree as source material because it eventually became a standin for so much.

The body, for instance. The kind of strange growths that
occur on trees. Burls or galls… it’s a really rich metaphor, still.

It all kind of goes into a big, big basket in my brain.
I take a personal lens to start sorting that out.
Picking and choosing what is going to inform the clay works.

This is my interpretation. I let these go to communicate with an audience. The work isn’t really finished until somebody sees it and engages with it.