Where am I? Who are you?
Enstrangements is a place for me to share the things I make in the form of a letter. I am Nico, a documentary poet, filmmaker, sometimes dancer, chilean, american, trans, non-binary, femme,
If you’d like to know more about what I make, how I make it, and what enstrangement means, here’s an introductory post.
As to where I am physically, that changes a lot, but for the most part these days I’m living on the ancestral lands of the Narragansett and Wampanoag people, now called Providence, Rhode Island (resources on supporting both tribes and more PVD fundraisers here).
Much of my writing comes from the other side of the country, Northern New Mexico, land that the Jicarilla Apache, Pueblo, Ute and Comanche peoples have lived in relation to for uncountable years. I also always am drawing on my family, home in Santiago, Chile: Pikunche land, though they probably didn’t call themselves that. As far as I know, the people in the valley around the Río Mapocho called themselves che, which means people.
Recognizing the land is an expression of gratitude and a way of honoring the Indigenous people who have been living and working on this vast island of many names from time immemorial. I myself exist because of interwoven processes of colonization and resistance, violence and migration. I try to carry, or at least hold, my ancestors from all sides of these histories in me and my writing.
If you’d like to post here or collaborate on something, I’d love to talk. I’d love to know who you are and where you are, too.
Why subscribe?
Subscribe to get my work in your inbox. I’ve been finding I prefer that to checking people’s blogs online or following on social media.
Here’s the small archive of things I’ve shared here; more of my films and older work live on my website, where you can find other ways of supporting me, too.