american chestnut

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a nurturer—at first not by choice, being a caregiver to a disabled younger sibling, living with aging grandparents. It became, unknowingly, how I viewed the world: bringing a cat and an unnecessary amount of plants into my life, creating conditions for people to express themselves, and as a researcher who aims to understand what makes spaces inclusive and welcoming. Being a nurturer became who I was, even if it came at the cost of not knowing who was behind it all.

Pole dancing first found me about a year ago, in a moment of self-doubt, in the form of a small billboard planted on a sidewalk in Brooklyn. It was then that I began to think about and understand, not just self-care for the sake of survival, but self-nurture through embodiment. Through the sensuality and freedom of expression that pole dancing offers, movement became the mode in which I could nurture my own spirit. I’ve dabbled in many different hobbies and creative practices: music, dance, rollerblading, sewing, printmaking, painting. Nothing ever stuck. I realize now what I craved was not a new creative practice, but a freedom to intuitively explore creativity, without rules, and with others. Pole dancing is empowering in that there is no “right” way to dance around, on, or up a pole. It encourages me to tap into intuition in ways I had never given myself permission to before, allowing me to gather inspiration not just from “dance” in a formal sense—which I had been exposed to as a child—but from the organic movements of the people and beings around me. It has offered me a space and a community to re-engage with a practice that I was never able to fully embody before, providing a vehicle to channel who I am beyond all of the “things” I do or produce.

I still feel like my life is a random collection of activities that I feel called to do for no reason, but movement helps to make sense of it. It’s how I trust myself to embody new possibilities, and honor connections to other people and ways of being. Learning from people you love is the best way to grow; this project feels like a testament to that. What started as me wanting to explore the boundaries of what pole dancing could mean to me with my loving pole community, became being invited by Carrick to use Climate Storytelling as a place to experiment, asking Anjali to collaborate on bringing my words to life, and working with my partner, Kieran, on video production and editing, as he captured my freestyle dancing. Living is an inherently communal practice, and my own way of living is no exception. I would be lying if I told you that I knew exactly how this project would come about when I first dreamt of it, but allowing it to emerge through experimentation, collaboration, and the intuition of the people around me culminates in what you see in front of you today. I hope it makes you think about your role in the world, your connections, your communities, and your body.

Raissa Xie is a designer, researcher, and creative hobbyist based in Brooklyn. This project was created in collaboration with Anjali Nair, with video and production support from Kieran Haruta.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about creativity in the context of community. In academic settings, my collaborators and I waxed poetic about relational creativity, collective effervescence, co-production when clumsily trying to articulate what was so special and important about making stuff together. In the DIY indie music scene in Brooklyn, where I’ve largely poured in my creative energies over the past few years, the idea of communal creativity is far less formally defined – more of an unverbalized ethos, evident in the way musicians show up for each other’s week night performances and tap one another’s distinct voices to help realize weird, nascent (and at times silly) ideas through various mediums.

Less in the head, more in the body - or more in the way you are with others. 

The most difficult thing about art for me is not making the art, but making meaning after the fact - or what feels like trying to convince a faceless audience that it should matter, that they should listen. So it has felt like a relief to not think too hard about the larger implications of the things I’m creating - exploring my newest songs live in the last few months have been less intellectual, more cathartic. Less in the head, more in the body. I’m getting to know the music and the people I make music with, and the others who make sounds around me in response. 

In that spirit, I’ve really taken to saying yes to creative collaborations without really thinking too much about it. And that brings me here, to my friend Raissa reaching out and asking if I would compose a sound piece for an “experimental art-ish project” she was working on for Climate 2075. I said yes, knowing very little. 

And yet, in my current state of hesitant sense-making - which for me, always occurs at a distance from the creative process itself - I am finally seeing the connections. Community, collective strength, self-sustaining networks. It keeps coming back to this. 

To me, “american chestnut” – the poem, the soundscape, the collaboration between my friend and I – communicates a sense of expansiveness and possibility, without denying the great loss we may experience if we do not act in solidarity with each other and our more-than-human companions. 

Anjali Nair is a musician and design researcher currently based in Jersey City, NJ, who writes and releases music under the moniker navel grazr.