DCC 30: Vivek Shraya "What I'm doing is not about a performance"
Dress Code Cracker: the podcast -- style and communication
English - October 22, 2015 12:36 - 59 minutes - 67.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingFashion & Beauty Arts Society & Culture Documentary class fashion feminism semiotics style subculture symbolism Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Vivek Shraya is a multimedia artist living in Toronto with strong ties to prairie malls.
She's produced 10 albums, written 3 books (with 2 more set for release next year) and created 4 short films, all to great acclaim. She talked to me about the production of art, how performance grounds her,
Her debut novel, She of the Mountains, was named one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2014. A three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Vivek has read and performed at shows, festivals and post-secondary institutions internationally, sharing the stage with Tegan & Sara and Dragonette, and has appeared at NXNE, Word on the Street, and Yale University.
Vivek is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, the 2014 recipient of the Steinert & Ferreiro Award for leadership in Toronto’s LGBTQ community, recipient of Anokhi Media’s inaugural Most Promising LGBTQ Community Crusader Award in 2015, a 2015 Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award finalist, and a 2015 recipient of the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Prize Honour of Distinction. Both Vivek’s debut collection of poetry, even this page is white, and first children’s picture book, The Boy & the Bindi, will be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2016.
Her POC fashion project (co-edited with Karen Campos Castillo) is at
We talked about Rihanna, Beyonce (duh), gender expression, performance vs 'real life', and style as class privilege. She also educated me in the nicest way possible about being so judgemental about other people's style.
Thanks Vivek! You're amazing!