“I’m scared. I’m fragile, weak, and scared.” Roy Dib smokes, checks Instagram, and looks out onto the Mediterranean while delivering a pensive monologue on love, sex, nationhood, and migration. Between drags, Dib pries apart the norms that ostensibly unite societies (marriage, the nation-state, the pursuit of happiness), forging a critique embedded in his own entanglements and complicities. “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. Roy Dib (born in 1983) is an artist and filmmaker based in Beirut. On both formal and conceptual levels, Roy Dib challenges common notions of space and boundary, weaving together archival material, scripted text and hypothetical circumstances to chronicle the political narratives of our day. His work has been presented at Studio la Città (2021), Loop Barcelona (2020), Galerie Tanit (2018), MAXXI Museum (2017), Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017), ALFILM (2017), JCC (2016), Forum Expanded – 64th and 65th Berlinale, Exposure 2015 – Beirut Art Center, Uppsala International Short Film Festival (2014), Queer Lisboa (2014), Images Festival (2016) - Toronto, Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil (2013, 2015 and 2017), Ashkal Alwan (2014), and Video Works (2011–2014). Song credit: Cesária Évora, "Sodade," 1992. Photo: Aly Saab

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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