Nanu Berks is a prominent blockchain artist whose creativity is ignited by finding our roads back to freedom through this technology.
She believes in creating large-scale public art murals/installations as efficient ways of continuing the conversations outside of the screens and keyboards.
For the past two years, Nanu has been following the blockchain conference circuit speaking, reporting, live painting, bridging the gap between non-technical creatives + hyper-technical advances, leveraging the opportunities for self-evolving education that exist in between.
She is originally from Argentina, but as long as she can remember she has been backpacking living a nomadic lifestyle. She was born in San Juan, Argentina, a very small town and had the privilege of growing up playing in the dirt without much tv or distractions. When she was nine years old she moved to a bigger city, Cordoba and then Buenos Aires and at 13 immigrated to the US.
Without any English background, and coming from a broken economic system where the Argentinian banks had stolen all of her family’s life savings, escaping and traveling became her coping mechanism.
At first, she backpacked hoping to detach from society and its rules, lived in jungles with no phone or computers and she thought she would never return to civilization. She started painted murals and busked on the street and lived an adventurous life hitchhiking across the Americas and a bit of Europe and The Middle East.
As soon as she decided to return to the city again she was hit by a truck while biking in Argentina and had a near-death experience. She had to move back to the US (Boston) where her mother was based to re-learn how to walk.
After this happened, she decided to try life the conventional way and moved to Austin Texas. She became a digital nomad creating content and pr strategies for various tech companies and finally paid rent for an apartment where she lived. This move gave her the chance to confront her escapist tendencies and focus on growing some roots.
Finding community and having a place to create art ongoing healed her and so the anarchist rebel in her was able to resurface with new aligned intentions and motivations of serving our collective conscious evolution.
Realizing that resisting technology meant she had to help in this very realm from within. This was the most useful of all sparks for her. She always advocated for education as self-empowerment and learning about blockchain technology as a vehicle for activism and efficient change continues to motivate her to become a better person and positive community building influencer.
Following the crypto conference circuit has brought her back to her roots. She knows to some people, especially non-technically inclined creatives, technology might not seem parallel to grounding, Genesis, beginning, however, everything we are is technologic evolution. From the most ancient plant medicines and biochemistry to blockchain decentralization for this paradigm shift. These extreme mirrors are what interest me the most, and so my visual interactive creations are based on encompassing a moment in time with the raw feeling of the energy surrounding an event or project. She intends to in this process create a visual timeline of the blockchain evolution movement as we live it.
At conferences like TokenFest.io, she enjoys creating a contemporary street art collage piece such as the one in the picture, using found objects, often brands’ stickers as a visual map of a snapshot in time. In many ways, this decentralized city of nomadic visionaries and entrepreneurs feels very similar to what she imagines was the roaring 20’s, and she feels privileged and grateful to have a voice within this transformational human experience.
She does not have the exact roadmap yet, but figuring this out is turning out to be the most fulfilling adventure she has embarked on so far.
The amount of support and collaboration in this space is beautiful and she wants to help other artists discover their unique ways of living their dream-lives in ways that are abundant for themselves, as well as the healing of our planet.
What do you love most about digital currency?
Nanu believes in the decentralization of power and redistribution of wealth and resources. She believes in freedom of expression, compassion, innovation, and that abundance and technological progress do not have to be destructive. Blockchain technology is the vehicle for all of this to become a more tangible reality.
Money, fiat, value, is made up. I love being able to print out fun or new money that is unregulated by the government, basically as a trade system, where we agree that we want to work together and we can circulate assets to each other in ways that are useful to us, beyond bureaucracy regulated by a 3rd party, in a transparent, free flow and honest way.
I love that countries like Venezuela, Mexico and even my home country, Argentina, are already benefiting from using cryptos as their new monetary system, from families sending them cryptos, to building new homes and reconstructing cities after natural disasters.
Who do you admire most in the industry and why?
The community, honestly I first got into cryptos because I was fascinated by the revolutionary energy behind these technologies, they allowed me to re-set my own value outside of the current art market regulations.
As an artist, entrepreneur and educator, I saw opportunities to teach and continue to learn, while completely satisfying my needs and creativity with no boundaries. Soon after connecting with the community I realized we were all very much aligned in our ethos, our core wants to better this planet, and that blockchain was the thing, not only cryptos.
What blockchain technology can do for us is endless, and our collective higher calling is becoming more conscious altogether. I believe blockchain technology, decentralization of all systems, makes it more accessible to collectively raise our awareness with less red tape.
What projects are you currently working on?
Currently, really excited about spray painting and creating art installations inside old regal banks in cities across the world with other wonderful blockchain artists! Our first one might be Puerto Rico and perhaps Canada after.
Always looking for more banks we can re-vamp as art installations. Also enjoying advising companies on how to integrate art and crypto culture into their current projects, it has been lovely receiving so many emails about possible projects, the challenge is truly deciding what to work on with a narrow focus.
At this time my main projects are the evolving caravan which includes art projects and conscious collective awareness with blockchain and art as vehicles for mass-understanding and adoption of these new systems.
What’s your biggest accomplishment to date?
My biggest accomplishment to date is being able to live exactly the life I want without compromising on anything at all, of course, I say this mindfully aware of my actions and intentions as collaborative with others, but basically not compromising on daily tasks or working with people or companies I don’t believe in.
Since I was little I have always wanted to be a writer and artists, advocating for collective awareness and that is exactly what I am doing now.
It took some back and forth, leaving and coming back to the corporate world, a lot of deep depression cycles and almost giving up, but eventually working through every emotion and persistence allowed me to be where I am.
Every morning, and every moment really, I ask myself, “am I done working on this project?” if the answer is no, then I move forward, no matter how difficult it might seem at that time. If we never give up, if every bit of energy goes into our largest purpose, eventually things line up pretty nice.
What did you learn from your biggest failure?
Depression is a magical compass and a very useful one. We have these emotions that keep us in check about our life purpose. When we mask or hinder them, we miss out on the key information our bodies manifest in very tangible ways for our mind and soul to receive.
For years I felt trapped in depression until it was so prevalent, I could not hold any job, or do anything other than the thing I loved, painting and writing. Once I stoped self medicating with food, weed, or whatever it was at the time and learned to listen to my emotions, I was able to understand that the only way I was going to be happy and sucessful was by living a life that allowed me to be my highest self in integrity and as part of the community I was meant to support.
This allowed me to strategically plan out a way of using my skills and love of the arts towards sharing information about the systems that allow us to live freely and compassionately in this world.
To learn more about Nanu Berks, check out her official website at http://nanuberks.com/ or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
