w Moroccan artist from Netherlands Sana 🍊🥺🌻 on lessons from 2021 + asking: who can you share your struggles with? (013)

Co-Host:  Sana @artsy.sl | Host: Xinyi Xan @xinyixan

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• Time to Kill, Binge Listen Maybe? 🥺 LAST EPISODE: w fellow digital nomad Tiffany ✨🇲🇽🏮on our fav feelings + asking: the rise of k-pop and Asians in Hollywood? (012)

Welcome to episode 13 of Don’t Be Strangers, a series of long wholesome phone calls (with your could-be friends) digging into all the posibilites of life. If we haven’t met before, my name’s Xinyi and I started this podcast mid 2021 as a social experiment. I’ve always had such deep, rich, and soulful conversations with my friends that I wished I could record and share with the world and... that’s exactly what I’m doing now!

The reason why I changed the tagline to include “could-be friends” is because I really want to focus on the community building aspect of running this podcast in 2022. We just kicked off round 1 of our Pen Pals Club which, as you can guess, some of the past co-hosts are actually participating, which means you can personally connect with these very introspective, kind, and open-hearted people. If you enjoy the questions that are asked on the podcast, you’d be a perfect fit for our Pen Pals Club! Find the link in the show notes or on the instagram page @dontbestrangers! We’d love to have you!

And last but not least, while I’m setting my intentions on building this community — I’d be so honored if you could share your favorite episode of this podcast with a friend or two whom you think would appreciate the topics discussed. I’m also dreaming of a way where I can easily accept submissions for featuring works and instagram posts from the community so that it becomes more of a platform that even you, the listener, can use to find inspiration and share your own light.

So with all that said, I’m so stoked to introduce you to my friend Sana from the Netherlands. We met primarily through my IG lives when I was hosting these “office hours” for creating art early on during the pandemic. While I didn’t know too much about her besides our warm small conversations over my sketchbook, I loved her vibrant energy. And as you’ll hear during our conversation, I was really pleasantly surprised when I received her application to co-host because it meant that I’d have exactly this conversation to see her “face-to-face” for the very first time, to learn more about her and from her, and to really make this new friend whom I’d already been very loosely chatting with through text for over a year. My first impression of Sana is that she’s so vibrant and zesty and a little sassy but in a very playful and refreshing manner.

We laughed SO much during this conversation and I’m so excited for you to dig into these topics with us which includes:

1. What we learned from 2021 and our word for 2022

2. New mediums we want to try as Creative Chimeras

3. Sana’s daily habits

4. How she found her best friend

5. This idea of “Life Goes On” (as loosely inspired by BTS)

And with that, please meet Sana...

CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS ✨

03:27 - Q Sana to Xinyi: What’s the most important thing you learned last year?

03:42 - Xinyi: “We really have agency in our life.” 

06:22 - Xinyi: “Allow yourself to play is not necessarily the opposite of being productive. It’s also productive.”

07:44 - Q Xinyi to Sana: What’s the most important thing you learned last year?

08:38 - Xinyi - Explaining the American School Progression

08:53 - Sana - Explaining the Netherland School Progression 

11:50 - Q Xinyi to Sana: What would be your one word to summarize 2021?

12:54 - Q Sana to Xinyi: What is your word for 2022?

13:04 - Xinyi: #bigkidenergy — less perfectionism and more play 

13:54 - Sana’s phrase for 2022: “Getting Out of my Comfort Zone.”

14:30 - Q Xinyi to Sana: In terms of your art, how do you decide what to share and to share it? Along the same line of thought — how do you decide what to create and how to create it?

15:43 - Sana: I share almost all my art… I love sharing it… I love it also when people respond… I mean, likes is fun. I would love to really have comments… Because I also really like feedback.

17:18 - Sana: “EXCUSE ME! What are you talking about?” I wish someone would do that to me, too. And that’s why I like sharing [my art], to have other people who are also very passionate about art talking to each other… like we have this community.  

17:36 - Q Xinyi to Sana: Do you feel like the art community is stronger on TikTok vs Instagram?

19:59 - Q Xinyi to Sana: How did you find my account (this is due to my interest in understanding how things come to be!!)?

20:16 - Aileen Xu @lavendaire  

20:30 - Michelle Choi / Hyelim @theseoulsearch

23:58 - Q Sana to Xinyi: What is a medium you would love to work with that you haven’t worked with before?

26:21 - Xinyi: And that’s what I love about music is that I feel like it’s like another language. You don’t really need to understand words, but the vibrations and the energy and the feeling that it gives you… that’s what I love. 

27:39 - Q Xinyi to Sana: What is a medium you would love to work with that you haven’t worked with before?

28:09 - Wacom Drawing Tablet 

28:43 -  Q Xinyi to Sana: What are 3 favorite daily habits/rituals that you do?

29:23 - Sana: My clothes can really make what mood I’m in.

29:38 - Sana: Do I have to wear something JUST to go outside? I’m doing this for myself! (On dressing up even during lockdown at home) 

33:47 - They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

35:10 - Q Sana to Xinyi: How are you experiencing the pandemic?  How did you feel during the lockdown?

39:48 - Q Xinyi to Sana: How do you define a stranger and at what point do they transition from being one to not being one?

41:06 - Sana: And with friends you really have this connection… You talk more with each other… and you also feel safe. 

41:55 - Xinyi: That’s all that we’re seeking as humans — we want to feel safe. And I think that’s part of why we seek connections and communities, too, because it’s something that makes us feel like we belong and that we are safe. 

42:20 - Q Xinyi to Sana: What’s something that you’re struggling with currently?

51:05 - Sana: (On finding connections) We should never give up.  There are always people that have good intentions.

52:07 - Sana: “Life Goes On” and remember that.