CANADA—Photographer Tim Van Horn knew from the tender age of five that he wanted to be a photographer, travelling the world to meet new people and to document their lives. Now, at the more seasoned age of 45, Mr. Van Horn has taken on a photographic odyssey to document the people of this vast and magnificent land in a transmedia project that will culminate in a year-long travelling Canadian Mosaic pavilion and photographic book ‘A New Canada’ in time for Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2017.
Mr. Van Horn’s current goal is to photograph 54,000 Canadians from coast to coast and he is well on schedule with the more than 35,000 he already has ‘in the can,’ gathered over the past six years Mr. Van Horn has been on the road. A number of photos were gathered just this past week on Manitoulin as the photographer was travelling west again. The photographs will form the base of both the mosaic and the book.
“This is the first time in recent memory that the people of Canada will be documented coast to coast,” said Mr. Van Horn. “The project will create a map documenting the people of Canada.”
The mosaic is slated to grace the side of a specially modified Bluebird bus that will also serve as a pavilion on wheels as well mobile projection platform if all goes according to Mr. Van Horn’s plans. Mr. Van Horn said that work on the van will begin in 2016. “The side of the bus is 40-feet long and 12-feet tall,” he said. Mr. Van Horn said that he was removing the windows to create a larger surface on which to display the mosaic.
He plans to set out from Ottawa on Canada Day 2017 on a journey to revisit the communities in which the photographs were taken.
Mr. Van Horn is not only collecting photographs of Canadians, he is also collecting their stories as he travels to enhance the “the fabric of who we are.” Many of those stories will appear in the book ‘A New Canada.’
The transmedia art project is grassroots funded as a matter of principle, noted Mr. Van Horn. “I want to keep it corporate-free,” he said. By not accepting a corporate of government sponsor for the event, Mr. Van Horn said that the project will be kept free of any contaminating agenda. “The project will be here for the Canadian people, not for the corporations.”
The project is funded through the sale of $20 packages of art cards that can be purchased online at canadianmosaic.ca to sponsor a kilometre of the project. In addition to receiving the art cards, sponsors will have their names listed in the ‘A New Canada’ book. There are other levels of sponsorship, with a $100 sponsorship also garnering a 24 x 36 art print. www.canadianmosaic.ca
