“We can’t lose sight of the fact that we need each other, especially because we don’t have precisely the same experiences, feelings, or words.”

As the twenty-first and final contributor to Artists-in-Presidents, project initiator Constance Hockaday shares a message calling for care, generosity, and understanding. Hockaday advocates for a qualified sense of unity; she acknowledges the imperfect and messy nature of working together, while suggesting that the very act of building and maintaining relationships is prefatory to social and political change.

“Artists-in-Presidents” is 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.

Constance Hockaday is a queer Chilean-American from the US/Mexico Border. She is a director and visual artist who creates immersive social sculptures on urban waterways. She has worked with the Floating Neutrinos since 2001, and collaborated with Swoon’s Swimming Cities projects, sailing floating sculptures along the Hudson, Mississippi, and the Adriatic Sea (2006–09). In 2011, she created The Boatel, a floating art hotel in New York’s Far Rockaways made of refurbished salvaged boats—an effort to reconnect New Yorkers to their waterfront. Her 2014 piece All These Darlings and Now Us highlighted the displacement of San Francisco’s queer community: more than 1000 people watched peep show performances on a raft of retrofitted sailboats featuring artists from two recently shuttered iconic queer businesses. Hockaday holds an MFA in Social Practice and MA in Conflict Resolution. She is also a Senior TED Fellow and an artist-in-residence at The Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA.

Photo: Max Knight