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Kelowna part of Canadian Mosaic

Tim Van Horn visited Kelowna for a second time this weekend as part of his project
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Photographer Tim Van Horn is collecting the many faces of Canada for his mosaic. He stopped in Kelowna to gather photos on the weekend. - Credit: Carli Berry/Capital News

Kelowna faces are contributing to the Canadian Mosaic Project.

Photographer Tim Van Horn made a pit stop in Kelowna’s downtown over the weekend to collect 100 faces for his ongoing project where he travels coast to coast photographing Canada’s communities.

“We have this wonderful country, but we don’t have a visual that accurately represents who we are. So my mission as a photographer is to travel, meet all these characters and celebrate Canada,” he said.

“Anywhere there’s a sign post I stop and get a photo. Now Kelowna happens to be a pretty big community, and I’ve been here before,” he said.

In Van Horn’s eight years of working on the mosaic, he’s photographed 57,000 people from 1,250 communities across the country.

He’s also adding new portraits to the mosaic with his trip, to build the collage to 70,000 faces.

Big Maple the rv by a big maple by a gas bar. #superawesometreeexperince

A post shared by Tim Van Horn (@canadian_mosaic) on

“All too often when projects are initiated on Canada, it’s the landscape,” he said, but his focus is on the people, which are displayed across his RV.

He’s travelling on a one-year journey to previously visited communities so people can see themselves displayed on the side of his RV which he took during the last excursion.

He said one of the highlights of his travels was a French woman who didn’t speak English, yet he was able to convey his message to her and vice versa.

“If you open yourself up you can feel a stronger connection to the community,” he said, which is part of his goal with the project.

“It’s all about inspiring us to believe in community and one another.”

Growing up in a military family, he felt it was his duty to photograph the Canadian face with his art.

You can find Van Horn and his colourful RV near Stuart Park, Saturday and Sunday.