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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.

Vivek Shraya

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Vivek Shraya
Writing
Leaving
Love
Hatred
Couldn
Hate
Experience
Write
Prevents
Body
Specifically
Without
Entering

More quotes by Vivek Shraya

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I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.
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When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.
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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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As much as I believe in the capacity for art to create change, and as much as being an artist is physically and emotionally challenging, there is ultimately something a bit comfortable about making art in the comfort of your own home.
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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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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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My interest in language is steadfast, but I think each project and its accompanying intentions dictate how language must be used.
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I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.
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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 especially worry about the ways Canadians can be glib about our supposed difference from the US in our acceptance of diversity.
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I continue to explore poetry.
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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 am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.
Vivek Shraya
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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.
Vivek Shraya
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When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
Vivek Shraya
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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.
Vivek Shraya
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As a general rule, I tend to collaborate with artists whose work I admire.
Vivek Shraya
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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?
Vivek Shraya
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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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I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.
Vivek Shraya