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

Video directed by Raghed Charabaty.

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:

Hi, I’m Tim Whiten.

What I make, I consider to be cultural objects.
The work that I do comes from ‘awarenesses’ from my everyday experiences.
A lot of those are things which I feel that I’d like to share with other people,
that may have certain insights that would be useful to other people.
Or they may have interesting notions that probably provide nuances about the nature of how someone could look at something and understand it or feel better about it, or whatever!
I think it’s just about sharing.
The notion of the work, which is ongoing every day, often gives me the awareness that I’d like to have this shared with other people, I’d like to make sure that other people get the chance to see it, too.
What they do with it, I don’t know, but sharing becomes an important aspect of the work. Because as I say, that’s the everyday thing that I do. It’s nothing extraordinary, I don’t think.
It matters to me that they find value in it or have something that actually will ring a bell for them, that actually takes them further in their way of living. Really, that’s all that matters.

People don’t have to understand the reason behind it at all. You give a gift to somebody, do they have to ask you, ‘Why did you give me this gift?’
I think at some point, the offering itself is itself the answer.
But I think something is important about being excited about living. And if you’re excited about living, sometimes that excitement boils over that you want to share it with other people.

And essentially the joy of it takes the work out of it. It’s not work when you do it. It’s the nature of an ongoing experience of living.

That’s what life is!