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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.

Vivek Shraya

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Vivek Shraya
Hard
Responsible
Poetry
Answers
Feeling
Asks
Feelings
Resolution
Didn
Provide
Without
Questions

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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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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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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Art can sometimes be separate from the artist.
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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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Music is my first love, where my artistic journey began.
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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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Writing about racism requires a directness that writing a love story does not.
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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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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.
Vivek Shraya
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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.
Vivek Shraya
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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 always considered the aesthetic of a project, including press photos, as a means to further the message of the art itself.
Vivek Shraya
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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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Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
Vivek Shraya
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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.
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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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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My art career often feels less like an art career and more like a career in educating, usually by using my body.
Vivek Shraya
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Children are receptive to talking about gender creativity, confirming the importance of the book as a means to instigate this dialogue at an early age.
Vivek Shraya