Uploaded January 2016 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
We have redesigned our funding model. We launch 6 new funding programs in 2017 replacing specialized programs with six broad programs. You can access information about the new programs, their objectives, candidate and entrance activity requirements, the maximum grant allowance, application deadlines and assessment criteria here: canadacouncil.ca/funding.
We have redesigned our funding model. We launch 6 new funding programs in 2017 replacing specialized programs with six broad programs. You can access information about the new programs, their objectives, candidate and entrance activity requirements, the maximum grant allowance, application deadlines and assessment criteria here: canadacouncil.ca/funding.


![Portrait of Midi Onodera, 2018 #GGARTS winner
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Midi Onodera is a 2018 winner of the Governor Generals Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Alexis Wood.
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arms-length 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://ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
Today we’ve become so media saturated and so inundated with the moving image, that it hardly leaves
time for someone to just take a moment and reflect on what youre seeing. The element of questioning
what youre seeing is absent.
I want to create those kinds of pauses in the moving image landscape to ask us to reflect and perhaps
question what were seeing.
Being an artist whose roots are in experimental film, I’m very interested in visual techniques that
change or lend another perspective to an image.
Ive worked in many different forms of moving image from cinema to writing for television to tiny videos for
mobile devices.
A theatrical experience is a group experience whereas a mobile device is much more of a tool for social
avoidance.
It’s intimate yet it’s in a very public space, so I am very interested in a kind of tactile cinema, which means
that it’s more about the relationship not only between the viewer and the screen but it also involves the
environment in which you’re consuming those items.
[Audio from Midi’s work Ten Cents a Dance (Parallax)] Midi: “Can I ask you something personal?”
And then I discovered toy cameras, to me it’s like discovering a whole new range of colours, a whole new
set of oils come to life.
When I started studying art I also was a painter and so I still have that kind of painterly lens that I’m
looking through when I approach a film or a video.
I think of the frame still as my canvas creating a world or an environment or a space that can be
manipulated in different visual techniques.
By putting my vision out there I’m hoping to connect with an audience and have them see things
through my eyes. Portrait of Midi Onodera, 2018 #GGARTS winner](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DZ64WInwn0k/mqdefault.jpg)
![Portrait of Jorge Lozano Lorza, #GGARTS2020 winner
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Jorge Lozano Lorza is a 2020 winner of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Josiane Blanc.
Production of the Canada Council for the Arts. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm’s-length 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 ggarts.ca
****
Transcript:
To me one of the most revolutionary things that I can do as a person is to enjoy what I do.
I came to Canada in 1971, and I came to the Island, actually.
When I came, I had to work in a lot of jobs as an immigrant.
What I kept within myself is this feeling of wanting to express myself.
The first thing that I did was to buy a Super 8 camera because I’d seen some experimental Super 8 films in Columbia from Norman McLaren.
So, when I came, I bought that camera and went out onto Yonge Street.
And as I began doing that I discovered, too, that I wasn’t represented in the arts or in the media.
I would turn the TV on, and I couldn’t see people like me or with my concerns.
Making films and videos was the tool that I used to put myself in the picture and say, ‘I exist.’
A lot of my work is an encounter with situations, with events.
Through observing and thinking a lot about what I see, and in some ways, trying to detect what separates us, trying to detect what does us harm as [a] community or as groups.
When it’s recorded and I bring it back into the house, it’s already charged with intensity.
Things that have excited me, that have impacted me, that I had to film or to record.
To me, to create is an act of happiness.
Even though [they are] difficult subjects, I feel good about it.
So that gives me freedom and happiness to do it.
I don’t do political work; I do it politically.
It’s not that I do work about issues.
The issues are there because they are part of my life, so the works have that.
Real politics to me is thinking, how much am I what I am questioning?
The plants have always played a very significant role in my videos, absolutely.
The plants are a transformation to me. The plants are adaptable.
Basically, I identify with them.
In a way, they are still being themselves in another place but they’re not at the same time.
Doing what I do is my life.
I have nothing else that I can do and that I want to do.
And when one does what one wants to do, it’s kind of a privilege.
Most people can’t do that. Most people have to work in another job.
And I have the fortune to be able to do what I want to do as I want to do it and how I want to do it.
Connect with us on social media:
Canada Council for the Arts
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/canada.council/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/canadacouncil
Twitter - https://twitter.com/CanadaCouncil
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/canada-council-for-the-arts/
Website - https://canadacouncil.ca/
Art Bank
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/artbank_banquedart/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CCartbank/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9fGIx7hZYk
Website - https://artbank.ca/
CCUNESCO - Canadian Commission for UNESCO
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ccunesco/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/CCUNESCO
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/canadian-commission-for-unesco/
Website - https://en.ccunesco.ca/ Portrait of Jorge Lozano Lorza, #GGARTS2020 winner](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DlQWvpisxkk/mqdefault.jpg)


![Portrait of Stephen Andrews, 2019 #GGARTS winner
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Stephen Andrews is a 2019 winner of the Governor Generals Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Directed by Lucius Dechausay.
Production of the Canada Council for the Arts. Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arms-length 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://ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
Stephen: You know, having a camera pointed at you and lights, the artificialness of it all makes me slightly nervous, but…
Filmmaker: It’s going to be 2 minutes.
[both laughing]
Stephen: Yeah. So, certainly I have said something two minutes’ worth in all of this.
Filmmaker: I think we have at least a minute ten.
[Both laughing]
Stephen: Even though we’ve been talking for an hour.
[Filmmaker laughs]
You know, hey? That’s the way people shoot photographs, right? Shoot 5,000 photographs for one.
Filmmaker: Exactly.
I’ve been HIV positive for 30 years. When I was 28, I figured it out and... For the first part of the 80s, people didn’t really know what was going on. There was this kind of… rumours about what was claiming the lives of a lot of young gay men. It was our war. And like all wars, it’s a fire and it hardens you. And it really just made me realize that you have to live every day like it’s your last.
That’s what happened with my diagnosis and the work that followed from it. It was a kind of way to speak with authority from a position of my own subjectivity and address larger issues that were bigger than myself.
There is this moment when you start a new body of work or do something that you haven’t done before and you don’t quite know what you’re doing, but in that moment, there is an energy. Somehow, the thing itself contains that energy, excitement… the newness, and you can see it in the work itself.
Working is being and doing at the same time. It’s kind of a philosophical thing. I can’t imagine ever stopping working. I think it’s the only reason I’m here, in some ways. Somehow, I think in these portraits there’s the kernel of these ideas that is developing. And I’m just going to trust that it’s going to reveal itself eventually. Portrait of Stephen Andrews, 2019 #GGARTS winner](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DyccRj-TBkU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Portrait of Clive Robertson, #GGArts2025 winner
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Clive Robertson is a 2025 winner of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Video directed by Alixandra Buck.
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’s-length 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.
****
Transcript:
Tonight, we have a tremendous show for you.
Got a dream? Talk to the Bank of DontWeAll.
Artists… Artists are a very serious people. They have something called ‘work,’ which looks like fun, reads like fun, sounds like fun, but is anything but fun.
[singing] _We reminisce, we sing a song, but we still know there’s something wrong. We’re still here, which is to say, counterculture never went away._
My PhD supervisor said, “A culture critiqued is culture cared for.” It was this reaffirmation of the magazine, the record label, and of course, the artists-run centres themselves.
_Broadcasting live from the Parachute Centre for Cultural Affairs._
Robert Filliou circulated this idea: for every artist to think of himself as part of an eternal network.
_Centerfold_ is Parachute’s newspaper document.
A key question that informs much of my work is: How is art spoken for? And who, or what, does the speaking?
_Hello?_
I’ve done some installation performances.
_He slapped me blind. He pulled the shotgun from the wall..._ [unintelligible]
This man, this man, whose own instigations...
_Repeat after me: There is nothing..._
There is nothing...
_creatively rewarding..._
creatively rewarding...
_about not being paid._
about not being paid.
_Out of the studio, into the street!_
_Fuse_ was something that we call a cultural news magazine. It was responding to issues which were misrepresented a lot of times by the media. The magazine had this mission of being able to publish in print, in audio and video.
When you’re an artist, people try their hardest to tell you that the world is not artist-centric, that your individualism is giving you a bad name, that the history of your existence is five parts mythology, two parts nostalgia. That you’re a figment of someone else’s patronly imagination.
Anyone can become an artist. All it takes is self-determination, some form of adolescent grudge, a little neurosis, optional allergies, good circulation, a bad appetite, a thick skin, a few ideals, romantic or otherwise.
Thank you!
#GGArts2025 #CliveRobertson #CanadaCouncil
Connect with us on social media:
Canada Council for the Arts
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/canada.council/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/canadacouncil
X - https://twitter.com/CanadaCouncil
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/canada-council-for-the-arts/
Website - https://canadacouncil.ca/
Art Bank
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/artbank_banquedart/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CCartbank/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9fGIx7hZYk
Website - https://artbank.ca/
CCUNESCO - Canadian Commission for UNESCO
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ccunesco/
X - https://twitter.com/CCUNESCO
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/canadian-commission-for-unesco/
Website - https://en.ccunesco.ca/ Portrait of Clive Robertson, #GGArts2025 winner](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EMjUmvqCeyI/mqdefault.jpg)


