As the end of the year approaches, so does the time for official toasts and speeches. While state representatives draft their solemn keynotes, artist Ayla Pierrot Arendt is preparing her yearly address as Voluntary Chancellor – a figure between fiction and reality she enacts since 2021. In conversation with writer and curator Alix Di Jusco, Ayla reflects on the complexities of representation and the seizing of public discourse as a tool for political imagination.