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Society & Culture

#45 – How Can Typing in Public Challenge Fear and Defend Free Speech? | Sheryl Oring

podcast July 3, 2025

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Interdisciplinary artist and activist Sheryl Oring returns to The Truth In This Art! 

Oring shares updates on I Wish to Say. “I Wish to Say” is her long-running public art project. For decades, thousands of people have dictated postcards to the U.S. president for this project. It started with just one typewriter. Now, it’s a growing collection of public records. It helps fight censorship and shares stories from people rarely heard.

Sheryl had a hard year after her school, University of the Arts, closed. This conversation looks at how that loss, plus listening and old papers, shaped her newest art.

Topics Covered: 

  • Fighting censorship: She was the first artist on the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
  • Typing on tour: She gathered messages from parks, libraries, and schools during an election year.
  • Archiving 5,000+ typewritten postcards and the invisible labor of cultural memory
  • Post-UArts Philadelphia: navigating grief, disillusionment, and artistic renewal after institutional collapse
  • Fear and self-censorship among immigrants, youth, and marginalized communities
  • Libraries as sanctuary: preserving democratic space as book bans and closures escalate
  • Art as care: on fermenting, gardening, and rituals that ground a life in transition

Sheryl first appeared on The Truth in This Art in 2023—listen to that conversation here.

This episode was recorded during a season that looked at archives, resilience, and artists who work in public spaces.

Host: Rob Lee
Music: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis.
Production:

  • Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel Alexis
  • Edited by Daniel Alexis
  • Show Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and Transistor

Photos:

  • Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.
  • Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.

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