Transmission: Françoise Vergès

“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 address to “sisters and brothers, comrades and friends,” Vergès offers a call for peace, love, and joy as pillars in the long struggle towards freedom. Vergès reclaims these traits, articulating their capacity for anti-racist and queer liberation. Françoise Vergès loves green mangoes with chili and lime, to cook for friends, to swim, to sew, to read, to dance and go to protest marches. She likes hot weather. She grew up in Reunion Island, Indian Ocean, and is forever grateful to have been educated by anticolonial feminist activist parents. She speaks Creole. She is an antiracist decolonial feminist who admires, and is inspired by, the struggles, voices, and strength of Black, Indigenous and brown women. Photo: Boulomsouk Svadphaiphane “Artists-in-Presidents” is initiated by Constance Hockaday, curated by Christine Shaw, and commissioned by The Blackwood (University of Toronto Mississauga). Podcast production by Vocal Fry. Transmissions are released every Friday from August 6–December 17, 2021. To view the portrait gallery, access ASL videos and transcripts, and for additional information about the project, visit www.artistsinpresidents.com and www.blackwoodgallery.ca.

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