Interview #230
S. Shakthidharan in conversation Smriti Daniel

“[…] the process looks like an old chook pecking away through the ruins; slowly, for many years, trying to collect, trying to find things of sustenance.”

“[…] language is a very fluid thing, and you can always be the agent and creator, so long as you give yourself and language a chance.”

“I guess I hope that comics don’t only prosper online, but that cartoonists continue to get together to make small presses, collaborate creatively, and talk in-person about how best to be artists (and support our larger communities) in this actually quite terrifying political landscape.”

“Be hypervigilant of popular discourse, seductive ‘progressive’ language, seemingly neutral and ‘inclusive’ policies, and other co-optation measures that blunt our consciousness, silence us into obedience, seduce us into cooperation, and conscript us to keep the racial machinery going. ”

“Art that conforms to cultures of repression is not neutral. It becomes a tool for reinforcing the status quo, an instrument and extension of state power.”

“I believe that if you’re going to take the past seriously as a setting for fictional work, you have to try your best to bracket out the present and let the story play out in its own terms.”