Your silence will not protect you was a nine-hour radio programme with a live audience that aired at the Piet Zwart Institute Master Fine Art “Studios Open” on February 9, 2019. The programme featured performances by the students, tutors, and alumni and submissions from local and internationally based artists. It was live-streamed throughout the day and programmed and hosted by Jake Caleb and Daphne Simons. Your silence will not protect you is a quote from The Transformation of Silence, an essay by writer, poet, intersectional feminist, and activist Audre Lorde (1934–92). In it she urges readers to speak out against fear, arguing that it is better to be bruised and misunderstood than afraid and trapped in muteness. Lorde proposes that by airing difference, a politics of speech will arise that breaks down our imposed and imagined separations, becoming the grounds for shared understanding and commonality. In the spirit of Lorde’s words, we used the radio as a space for experimental collective fantasy and dialogue.

Daphne Simons

Radio (Your Silence Will Not Protect You)