zayn wiwchar art · systems · sound
about

bio / statement

Zayn Wiwchar is an experimental mixed media artist based on Vancouver Island, on Lekwungen territory. He works across animation, painting, video, and sound, building pieces through layering and repeated editing.

A piece might begin with raw material such as field recordings, found footage, or physical fragments, or it might start from an idea worked out in drawing or painting. From there it moves through successive cycles of editing, collage, and recomposition until it settles. The method is additive and iterative rather than fixed from the start. The work returns to memory and emotional process, and to how feeling takes shape over time.

He comes to this from a background in social work, psychology, and mental health.

art web

art web A map of the practice. Inspiration arrives from the environment and from an untraced inner source, and sets all of action going. Thoughts, memories, intuition and potential select fragment, combine and synthesis; fragment and combine become collage, collage becomes synthesis, synthesis becomes meaning and then thematic, which shapes thoughts again. Collage and synthesis also return to fragment. Body and gesture lead to video and audio synthesis; video freezes into prints, and prints, sampling and noise break into fragments. Feeling is not a node: it is a field under the map, rising where the system is active and fading when the drive stops. shapes outer inner freezes into breaks into thematic thoughts meaning intuition inspiration memories potential combine fragment collage synthesis body / gesture conceptual noise physical noise environment movement (video) static (prints) audio synthesis sampling field recording
A map of how the work moves. Inspiration arrives from outside, through the environment, and from somewhere inside that isn't traced, and it sets all of action going. Thought, memory, intuition and potential choose what gets made: fragment and combine become collage, collage becomes synthesis, synthesis becomes meaning, and meaning settles into themes that shape thought again. Collage and synthesis also return to fragment. Feeling isn't a node here. It is the field under the map, rising wherever the system is active and fading when the drive stops. Hover or tap a node to drive it. On a small screen, scroll the map sideways. inner life action image, sound noise environment return to all of action untraced

cv

2025A/V performance, INIT Festival, Salt Spring Island
2023Art in Kiosks, City of Victoria
2020Basic Goodness (album), as Palm Reader, with Kay Gallivan (contributions from Soma Morse)
2019BSW, University of Victoria
2017PGNB Festival, Victoria — a/v performance as Vague (with Declan Hughes)
2017Plastic Nostalgia (EP), as Loft, Sensing Waves
2016The Book (album), lo::sun (with Misha Elkin)
c. 2015Casual Living, with Harold Hejazi and Misha Elkin, Ministry of Casual Living