Vivek Shraya Quotes
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I couldn't write about love without writing about hate - specifically, how the experience of hatred embeds itself in the body and prevents love from entering or leaving.
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It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.
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My art career often feels less like an art career and more like a career in educating, usually by using my body.
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My intention was never to write a "trans novel" - which is perhaps an effective strategy for writing a trans novel.
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I worry about what Trump will inspire in Canada, especially given incidents that have already occurred here since the election.
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I didn't want to give the white reader an opportunity to think of racism as imaginary - a sentiment that is already a central barrier in addressing the problem.
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When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
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I would love to see more dialogue around the "responsibilities" of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?
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As a general rule, I tend to collaborate with artists whose work I admire.
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Despite the fact that I'm not highly skilled in any visual art, aesthetics have always played a strong role in my art, including my first albums.
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When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.
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I am more likely to get paid for my art if it's presented alongside a white artist, so the questions around value and agency arise: What choices should I make, or do I have to make, if I want to be compensated for my work? Why isn't my art valued on its own?
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Making music has been connected to one of my greatest heartaches, because my own music has never quite connected with audiences. But it was this heartache that pushed me to explore other artistic avenues, like writing and filmmaking, and I ultimately feel most at home in a multidisciplinary environment.
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If anything, I have witnessed the ways my art travels, or is rendered more accessible, when sanctioned by or connected to white artists.
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When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to "look normal."
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In my thirties, I have felt a greater urgency to make art that highlights what it feels like to be racialized, likely due to living in a country that obscures our racism with the idea of "multiculturalism."
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Children's books have great potential to reveal new possibilities to readers, because the intended audience is at an age of genuine learning.
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Of course, I can't separate my queerness from my brownness - if anything, my queerness amplifies my brownness, and vice versa - but I spent so much of my early twenties trying to erase my differences, often without awareness of what I was doing.
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As a brown artist, I have mixed feelings about my relationship to art and my "responsibilities" post-Trump.
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I have always considered the aesthetic of a project, including press photos, as a means to further the message of the art itself.
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I used singing as a safety measure. I would pay attention to what songs the popular girls liked, learn those songs from the radio or library cassettes, and then "accidentally" sing or hum these songs in class. This would impress the girls, who would then defend me from the boys.
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I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and artistry to making art that addresses various forms of oppression, including white supremacy, misogyny, and biphobia.
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Art can sometimes be separate from the artist.
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I continue to explore poetry.
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I think white artists have a responsibility to be not only naming white supremacy, but to be using their power and privilege to support artists of color.
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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
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As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.
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Should I be collaborating with artists of color solely because of their race and my politics? This question is weighted with my own worry that I have been invited to speak or collaborate solely because of my race, and not because of my abilities.
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Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
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Music is my first love, where my artistic journey began.
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