Creative Content
When I am flying solo, my primary media for communications are written and spoken words (but I am also trying to dabble more in audio production and music). I work in many different formats: reports, articles, essays, opinion/commentary, fiction, speeches, website copy, scripts, presentations, explainers, press materials, and strategic plans, among others.
I write about my work and I also cover more personal topics such as my life and family background, curly hair (yes, this is a big topic with many layers, pun intended), music, death, and whatever else fires my imagination.
When I am working on a team (and I really really love to work with creative teams!) my media formats get much more expansive: for example, video, animation, explainers, commercials, data visualizations, website development, and guerrilla marketing.
Among my more provocative projects: stock photos and b-roll of responsible adult marijuana use, a made-up sex symbol with multiple online dating profiles to encourage younger people to vote, and performers dressed in Prohibition Era costumes descending upon the United Nations headquarters to draw attention to the failures of the war on drugs.
The Prohibition Times
Dressed up at the UN in prohibition era costumes with a group of performers to hand out copies of a letter signed by global leaders calling for an end to the war on drugs.
Marijuana Stock Photos
Produced a series of free stock photos with Ripple Strategies of normal, everyday adult marijuana use to encourage the media to stop using stoner stereotypes for their stories about marijuana policy and legalization.
Shirtless Ryan
Created a fictitious sex symbol with local activists, promoted with ads and online dating profiles, to get young people out to vote for Measure 91, which legalized recreational cannabis in Oregon.
Multilingual COVID prevention
Managed partnership between ad agency TBWA\Dublin and NGO Translators without Borders to create social media campaign highlighting the need for COVID-19 prevention messages in under-served languages.
Articles
Powerful Ancestors
A few months ago, I had the incredible good fortune to visit the Smithsonian Museum of African American History in Washington, DC. The place is an awe-inspiring testament to the deep wounds, trauma, resilience, power, culture, magic and beauty of the Black...
A Question of Faith
I have a memory from when I must have been around seven or eight years old. My mother and I lived in South Jamaica, Queens in an apartment that we rented upstairs from a very large family on the ground floor. I think we were sitting in the kitchen. I remember that it...
Wishing My Tongue Matched My Face
There are no hard and fast rules for what I look like to people in terms of ethnicity. Often it seems to depend on context and who I am with. Although Indians in the US frequently recognize me, I remember an Indian-American girl I met once years ago who...
Say My Name, Say My Name
Whenever I pick up the phone and the person asks for Sharada Chandrasekaran with flawless accuracy, I immediately know that this has got to be from an Indian call center making me some sort of offer. It gives me particular amusement when they follow up the...
Accidental Tourist
This may be a contradiction but I love to travel and I hate being a tourist. My best travel memories are sleeping in the living room of someone's (if not my own) extended family or sitting cross-legged on a mat around a cooking-fire. I prefer to be somewhere as an...