About the Project

 

Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Power is a polyvocal art project initiated by Constance Hockaday that takes up and subverts the model of the Presidential Address or Transmission to the Nation. The Blackwood has commissioned 21 artists, thinkers, performers, and writers to create audio addresses that perform power in new and different ways, and together compose a rousing collection of imaginative proposals for the leadership we need in this moment of global crisis and possibility. Inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Depression-era radio broadcasts called the “Fireside Chats” as a framework for speaking frankly and directly to the people, Artists-in-Presidents replaces the one-man hero story that plagues our histories and governing bodies around the globe, and complicates calls for unity by asking, “What messages do we need to broadcast to our nation(s) and relations now?”

Today, human and non-human citizens of this earth are faced with the disastrous social and environmental fallout of global capitalism and settler colonialism, with the COVID-19 pandemic only compounding the existing disparities in our communities. While we reject the Americanized FDR-era vision of unity in favour of a recognition of the complexities of global and globalized struggles, it is certain that we live in a comparable moment of crisis and possibility. During this period of political rupture, economic downturn, and global uncertainty, this project asks: What does it look like when artists assume authority of our collective future? What other modes of power become possible?

Initiated by Hockaday in 2020, a previous iteration of Artists-in-Presidents was presented alongside the 2020 US presidential election campaign, produced in partnership with UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance and Stanford Live Arts. Artists-In-Presidents: Fireside Chats for 2020 brought together fifty artists to assume authority over our collective future and to address the nation over radio, podcast, social media, and in a virtual gallery. Now, commissioned in 2021 with the support of the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga, Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Power continues to expand and reimagine vernaculars and aesthetics of power with the bodies and voices of brilliant thinkers, artists, writers, performers, and musicians—calling on them to assume authority over our collective future. This iteration brings together artists from across Turtle Island, England, Bahrain, Brazil, France, Germany, Afghanistan, Mexico, Indonesia, India, and Lebanon, envisioning new local and global propositions for leadership.

With the support of the Blackwood, Hockaday offers all Artists-In-Presidents access to professional speechwriters and technical support in creating their unique presidential addresses and portraits. For Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Power, 21 audio addresses and presidential portraits from artists as leaders will be released every Friday from August 6 to December 17, 2021 here and at blackwoodgallery.ca.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Artistic Director:          Constance Hockaday

Artists-in-Presidents:  d’bi.young anitafrika, Raji Aujla, Roy Dib, Irmgard Emmelhainz, Luis Jacob, Emily Johnson, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Kevin Gotkin, Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Ramin Mazhar, Mkomose (Dr. Andrew Judge), Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta), Fariha Róisin, Esra’a Al Shafei, Adrian Stimson, Melati Suryodarmo, Paulo Tavares, Françoise Vergès, Romily Alice Walden, Ravyn Wngz

Curator:                     Christine Shaw 

Producer:                  The Blackwood (Alison Cooley, Fraser McCallum, Saša Rajšić, Jacqui Usiskin, Ellyn Walker) 

Photographers and Illustrators: Adam Sings In The Timber, Jackie Brown, Tenille Campbell, Harry Hartantio, Fatimah Hossaini, Nicole Georges, Louise Hickman, Miguel Jacob, Max Knight, Andrea Pinheiro, Pedro Pinho, Clémence Polès, Anthony Rock, Vicky Roy, Blaire Russell, Aly Saab, Boulomsouk Svadphaiphane, Nithya Thayaal, Lake Verea, Soraya Zaman

Editors:                       Alison Cooley, Constance Hockaday, Christine Shaw, Wendy Univer 

Audio Producer:     Vocal Fry Studios (Katie Jensen, Ren Bangert, Stefana Fratila)

Outro Message Producer: Olivia Bradley-Skill

ASL Interpreters:  Canadian Hearing Services

Media Relations:   See Hear Speak

Translators: Ashraf (Ramin Mazhar), Surjit Kaur (Raji Aujla)

Research Assistants:  Maya Burns, Keiko Hart