Dead Fish, Dimes Square, Breathing Deep

What’s your first memory?

Taking a dead fish out of the ocean and lying to everyone that I had caught it with my bare hands.

Are there any quotes you live by?

‘Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.’ (Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart, 1996)

What’s your favourite street corner and why?

I have missed Dimes Square in New York a lot this year. I miss seeing my friends.

Where do you go for peace and why? 

I learned freediving during COVID-19, and I think the few moments I’m holding my breath deep under the ocean is my peaceful space.

What was the best concert you attended? 

Kelsey Lu at Knockdown Center in Brooklyn in 2019. As far as my memory goes, that was the best.

What do you wish you were better at?

Music, but I don’t think it’s too late yet.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would you go? 

In the Gulf of Mexico, where whale sharks give birth to their babies.

^{Main image: Korakrit Arunanondchai, Songs for Dying, 2021. Courtesy: the artist and Carlos/Ishikawa, London}