Artists-In-Presidents: Transmissions to Power

Series produced by Fraser McCallum

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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. 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.

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, Mexico, Indonesia, Afghanistan, 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 at www.blackwoodgallery.ca and www.artistsinpresidents.com. Hide full description

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... Show full description


26 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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Returning in a new iteration for 2021, "Artists-In-Presidents: Transmissions to Power” invites artists, public intellectuals, and writers to radica...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 09, 2021
  • Length: 03:35
  • Purchases: 1
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“There is no doubt our future will be unlike any other in the history of humanity, when we choose to remember. When we choose to restore the storie...

  • Added: Aug 09, 2021
  • Length: 05:45
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“To live, we need to breathe, to be held and to hold, to love and be loved, to make kin and communities. Yes, to love and be loved.” In a rousing...

  • Added: Aug 09, 2021
  • Length: 08:39
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“Keep going, keep going.” Wngz sings, whispers, and celebrates the legacies and histories that helped her find her voice: Sankofa; Harriet Tubman;...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 09, 2021
  • Length: 04:55
  • Purchases: 1
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“We envision a timeless and a historical future. We bury our seen and unseen dead. We mourn all of our losses. We catalogue our human and more-than...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 12, 2021
  • Length: 07:13
  • Purchases: 1
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“drag your body into the sunlight / dig a hole and bury yourself in it” Delivered via distorted and whispering proxy, Walden sends a biocentric me...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 20, 2021
  • Length: 02:40
  • Purchases: 1
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“When I say ‘Let’s get cozy,’ I’m asking you to join me in the making of a new and better world.” Gotkin reflects on the historical, social, and p...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Aug 27, 2021
  • Length: 07:47
  • Purchases: 1
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“Hope has always been necessary, but I do wonder if we’ve really ever had it.” Set against the backdrop of COVID-19 in New York, and rooted in com...

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis


  • Added: Sep 02, 2021
  • Length: 07:05
  • Purchases: 1
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“Is it my greed? Is it my greed that propels me to behave like this? How do I learn to share? Is it my fear? Is it my fear that propels me to behav...

  • Added: Sep 20, 2021
  • Length: 09:53
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“Only we, the people together, can inhabit the world differently. We are not united by the illusion of saving the world but defending life, binding...

  • Added: Sep 23, 2021
  • Length: 08:57
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“Today we see that the past is the future, and what once was will be once again.” Stimson offers a powerful call-and-response to John F. Kennedy’s...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2021
  • Length: 08:22
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“Do you even know what you want to want?” Jacob takes us on a looping and circuitous path through self-care and empowerment rhetoric. “Own it!” “Y...

  • Added: Sep 09, 2021
  • Length: 03:16
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“Only we, the people together, can inhabit the world differently. We are not united by the illusion of saving the world but defending life, binding...

  • Added: Sep 23, 2021
  • Length: 08:43
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“Never let go of your authentic self, even if it must be in hiding for now. Protect it like a lit match in the wind. Don’t let fear blow it out.” ...

  • Added: Oct 07, 2021
  • Length: 06:21
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“This body is a shelter, / of networking, of systems, / which give a complete life / and responsibilities / beyond culture, classes, and language.”...

  • Added: Oct 14, 2021
  • Length: 04:23
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“How do our cells become oriented to justice?” Dancer and activist Emily Johnson invites us to embody justice through song, dance, and vibration....

  • Added: Oct 21, 2021
  • Length: 08:51
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“I’m scared. I’m fragile, weak, and scared.” Roy Dib smokes, checks Instagram, and looks out onto the Mediterranean while delivering a pensive mon...

  • Added: Oct 28, 2021
  • Length: 07:36
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“[O]urs was a struggle not to take power. But to dismantle power altogether. We made presidency an empty seat, a void, a space never to be acquired...

  • Added: Nov 18, 2021
  • Length: 11:46
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“Not too long ago, humans and nonhumans lived in co-dependency. We intuited, breathed, and created together. Their offspring was mine and my offspr...

  • Added: Nov 04, 2021
  • Length: 03:37
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“Not too long ago, humans and nonhumans lived in co-dependency. We intuited, breathed, and created together. Their offspring was mine and my offspr...

  • Added: Nov 04, 2021
  • Length: 03:51