An interview with Jai Arun Ravine, from The Write Stuff series:

Jai Arun Ravine is writer, dancer and graphic designer. As a mixed race, mixed gender and mixed genre artist, their work arises from the simultaneity of text and body and takes the form of video, performance, comics and handmade books. Their second book, The Romance of Siam, is just out from Timeless, Infinite Light. jaiarunravine.com

When people ask what do you do, you tell them…?

I’m a writer, dancer and graphic designer. I design books and promotional materials for print and web. I also write book reviews and reviews of dance and performance.

What’s your biggest struggle—work or otherwise?

Being nonbinary in a binary world.

When you’re sad/grumpy/pissed off, what YouTube video makes you feel better?

Describe your week in the wilderness. It doesn’t have to be ideal.

Star-gazing and night-swimming.

What’s wrong with society today?

Trump.

What would you like to see happen in your lifetime?

An end to the genocide of Black people.

What are you working on right now?

“Ambient Asian Space,” a collaborative text / comics / .gif project with Coda Wei.

What kind of work would you like to do? Or: what kind of writing do you most admire?

Art that centers the “marginal” body as possible, vast, and full of magic.

If there were one thing about the Bay Area that you would change, what would it be?

Evict Twitter.

A night on the town: what does that mean to you?

Midnight bicycle rides.

What are some of your favorite smells?

Kasugai lychee gummy candy

Here to read all The Write Stuff profiles; here to watch all the videos

Photo by Scott Shaw