Can you tell me a bit about your perspective on the climate crisis?

I’m learning that the climate crisis is a question not of carbon but of ethos — of mindset. It’s question of whether we humans want to live as extractors — taking and taking, exploiting ourselves, each other, and the bounty of our planet, guided by a worldview of scarcity and competition — or as community members — taking and ​giving​, to ourselves, each other, and our planet, seeing the world as one of reciprocity, abundance, and nourishment for all.

In Ayurveda, we say that change is the only constant in life. Everything cycles through the phases of creation, maintenance, destruction. We see this in Hindu deities, for example (Brahma/Saraswati, Vishnu/Lakshmi, Shiva/Kali), or in biology (anabolism, metabolism, catabolism). I think we’re also seeing it in terms of humankind’s relationship to nature. Around 400 years ago, we saw the birth and proliferation of an extractive, colonial mindset (a creation phase). For 400 years, this mindset has dominated mainstream global cultures (maintenance). Now, we’re facing a climate crisis (destruction). But we decide: is this destruction going to destroy our human future on this planet ​or is it simply a destruction of extractive mindsets, a destruction that’s actually paving the way for the next cycle, the next re-creation: reciprocal systems?

Each of us individually plays a role in this collective movement. I don’t mean “what is your carbon footprint.” Reducing ourselves to our carbon footprints is another marker of extractive thinking: it’s valuing only what we’re taking out. We have to take a certain amount of resources to live and a certain amount to enjoy living. That’s okay. Let’s take what we need. More importantly, let’s ask: what are we putting back in? That’s where reciprocity happens, where potential is realized, where we finally understand the world not in its pieces but in the staggering beauty of its relationships. The role we play, then, is in relationship: how do we show up in our communities? Are we part of the energy of regeneration or are we part of the energy of destruction? Do we understand our own wellness as crucial to Earth’s wellness? We are at the end of one way of life. It’s time to create the next — a better culture. Ultimately, I hope to spark awareness and excitement around the perspective that as humans, we have limitless potential to be forces of balance and re-nourishment in this world — so why would we waste time being anything but?

I love these words you mentioned: ancestral wisdom and regeneration. Can you go into what they mean to you?

The term ancestral wisdom typically refers to a set of diverse indigenous knowledges from around the world that characterized everyday ways of being prior to colonization. These knowledges didn’t die out with colonialism, but they’ve been threatened and de-legitimized by cultural imperialism, whose agents call indigenous ways of life “savage,” “backwards,” and “uneducated.” One teaching of many ancestral cultures is some variation on the concept of “regeneration.” Regeneration refers to a cycle of nourishment, restoration, and renewal. Regeneration looks at the world through the lens of abundance rather than the modern economic view of the world as rooted in scarcity. I’m learning that regenerative thinking understands humans humbly as ​part​ of nature — part of a greater balance. It emphasizes working with Earth in reciprocity (always giving back when we take) and seeing the world as a gift worth stewarding for future generations. To me, ancestral wisdom means the future. I think the main work of climate action today is learning from those who remain stewards of indigenous knowledges. To be clear: I’m not advocating that we return completely to the way life was 400 years ago; rather, there are key learnings from ancestral ethos that I see as crucial re-learnings on our modern road to climate resilience. If humans want to be a part of the Earth’s future, we have to learn how to shift our extractive mindsets towards mindsets of reciprocity and balance with non-human nature. Through concepts like regeneration, ancestral wisdom gives us these exact attitude-shifting tools to apply to today’s problems. With these tools, we can cultivate a future that brings nourishment for all.

Tell me a bit about a specific project, or your favorite project that you’ve worked on and cultivated! It could certainly be one you are looking forward to creating in the future, as well.

I have a couple projects in the cooker right now. The first is a feature documentary in development about the growing movement for seed sovereignty among small-scale farmers across India. I’m excited about this one because I’m approaching it as a student, learning from folks in the field about their journey to reclaim economic and ecological resilience. The second is ​Expedition Reclamation,​ a short documentary seeking to redefine “outdoorsy” and reclaim belonging in outdoor recreation for Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color. This film is part of the greater Brave Space Project, where our goal as an all-women, multiracial, radically collaborative leadership team is to decolonize outdoor media both in front of and behind the lens. We’re currently in fundraising & post-production. A long-term project I’m developing is a scripted piece set against the backdrop of the climate crisis but taking shape as a character-driven story. To this day, climate-related media typically consists of science- and data-driven documentaries. I think projects like these are incredibly important and bring limitless value to the cause, but they tend to draw more specialized audiences. Fiction, on the other hand, often has wider appeal. Character stories evoke emotion. They imprint on us and make us care. We’ve seen this play out with narratives that take place in the context of social justice, gender justice, mental health, and more. I hope to contribute to the shift to bring climate out of its science niche and into the world of human story.

Art certainly has so much power, especially in contexts of social justice. Can you tell me a bit about this intersection of creativity, artistic expression, and social justice in the work you do?

There are several ways to read the power of art. To some, it’s the power of art to challenge the status quo, to draw attention to injustice, to provide unusual perspectives or radical ideas, to document the present for history. To me, ultimately, the intersection of artistic expression and social justice is rooted in the communicative power specifically of storytelling. Whatever the medium, this form of art presents an opportunity to grow movements by making a cause relevant to people. The climate crisis reminds me that we have nine years to shift the way we as a species move through this world. Nine years to re-learn reciprocity with the earth at both an individual and a systemic level. We can’t do that without all hands on deck. So the way I try to tap into the power of art as a tool for social justice is through its capacity to act either as a lingua franca — a common tongue — among diverse groups of people ​or ​as a specific messaging appeal to a certain group, expressed in a way they will uniquely find compelling. My role as a communicator ultimately lies in the fact that as I learn, I can share. Creativity teaches me the various ways I can share so that the learnings feel relevant and accessible to different kinds of people. I hope that with this approach my projects will help energize viewers for climate action, the Great Task (really: the Great Opportunity) of our era.

How has your experience as a woman of color been navigating this space? How do you feel as though identity shapes your experience?

I think my interest in communication and storytelling stems directly and inextricably from my experience as a woman of color in predominantly white spaces. I was one of the only non-white people — and one of only a handful of immigrants — in an overwhelmingly white community growing up in Connecticut. The same was true later in college. Though I’m remarkably privileged in several ways, I, like many third-culture kids (people raised in a culture that’s different from the culture of their homelands), have always lived in in-betweenness. There’s certainly a sense of disorientation that comes with that. You have one foot in two different worlds, but you never walk fully into either one. Especially in adolescence, it can be easy to lock away parts of your ancestral culture to fit in better with the dominant white culture. There’s a constant dance with assimilation — how much will allow me to exist with some degree of acceptance in these spaces, without fully erasing myself? It’s always a reaching, a striving, an explaining — it’s never a belonging. That loss takes a toll. It shadows parts of your potential, parts of your connection to your own self.

At the same time, living in in-betweenness is full of opportunity. If you have one foot in two different worlds, you have a chance to be a bridge. To carry with you a reciprocal flow of understanding between both sides of your communities. Isn’t that ultimately the goal of storytelling? It is, at least, my own goal as a communicator. To build movements through empathy, to bridge gaps by legitimizing multiplicity. For those of us that strive to be these bridges, I think the first step is to root down in ourselves — to re-legitimize our own multiplicity, to honor our own ancestral ways of being, and to validate our inherent belonging in our communities.

Top 3 books on your bookshelf at the moment.

Braiding Sweetgrass, Sapiens, Doughnut Economics.

You open your music streaming platform. What are you clicking on to listen to?

Tinariwen, Niu Raza, Maggie Rogers, and Kendall Street Company.

What meal are you feeling nourished by as of late?

My Amma’s kitchadi.

Thank you so much for chatting with me, Sanjana! Lastly, for those looking to follow along with your content and support you,
where can they find you?

Thank you for having me, Bella! It’s been such a pleasure. You can follow me on Instagram at @sanj___ or check out my website at ​sanjanasekhar.com​.