Meet Rachel Simanjuntak | Indonesian & Portuguese, Queer & Neurodivergent Artist, Community Organizer & Little Sister

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachel Simanjuntak and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I was the first in my family to choose an artistic career, so pursuing art was always risky. Success never felt certain and I filled that void by scouring artist blogs for advice and trying to ask as many questions as possible. I had to navigate certain crossroads like choosing which school to attend with very little guidance. Although I couldn’t ask my family for specific career advice, one thing I’ll never forget is when my sister told me I could do literally anything I wanted with my life. That reminder of my own agency was huge in opening me up to risk.

I feel that in the U.S., risk is heavily associated with fear: fear of failure, looking stupid, or losing money/stability…the list goes on. I’ve been trying to unlearn that conditioning and sometimes I could swear that the universe has an energy our bodies can read. You know, that gut feeling. The better I get at reading that energy and flowing with it, the more comfortable I feel with risk.

If I may share an example of what I mean: I started my career as a graphic designer and worked in that industry for 7 years. I came to a point where I started working on more of my own art, the flow of design freelance projects had started to slow down, and I was ultimately fired from a job I had poured a lot of myself into. I felt at a crossroads: Find a way to work on more art OR continue pursuing design. So I let the universe decide. I applied to Trader Joes and then one final design job. Whichever hired me first would determine where my life would go next. I never heard back from the design gig, and TJs hired me almost on the spot. 2 weeks later, the pandemic hit Los Angeles.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The first minizaki was a gift for JP Neang, an artist I really love and admire. She gifted me a small drawing once and it made me feel so special!!! I wanted to make something for her in return. I was on a hike with my sister and the trail we were on was littered with fallen acorns and acorn caps. I imagined picking one up and finding a tiny creature sleeping inside. So I sculpted a small Totoro and nestled him in. I surrounded him with grass, flowers, and mushrooms. It all flowed out of me so easily. I’d never experienced that before and it brought me so much peace, especially in comparison to graphic design which felt like such a painful process for me! I remember the excitement and the nerves of sending it to JP! What if she hated it or what if she thought it was weird??? Instead, she sent me back a heartfelt note and a photo of the piece resting on her nightstand. It was such an amazing feeling!

A few things solidified from that first minizaki. 1) That art as a gift can be really powerful 2) that even though I couldn’t draw I could make dioramas, and 3) that I’d found something that made me feel peaceful inside, less lonely even. So in my down time, I’ve continued to make miniature dioramas inspired by Miyazaki films like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. I imagine the characters as they’d appear in real world environments or what they’d be doing in the moments between their on-screen appearances. As I’m designing each scene, I’m searching for a balance between the whimsical, stylized characters and how real the scenery around them feels. Each diorama is made using a mix of found objects (like acorns, shells, sticks and sand) with sculpted objects made from foam and clay. I try to pick up objects when I’m feeling really grounded or connected to a physical place, like when I’m with my family. The first time my work was included in a group show, I picked up a few small pinecones and leaves on my walk to the show’s opening night. Sometimes I’ll photoshop the finished minizakis into different landscape images to check how “real” they feel. It’s so fun! As a small gift for folks that find me, I make the photoshopped pieces available for free on my website minizakis.com.

Each November I set up at DesignerCon to sell the dioramas I’ve made over the course of the year. It’s been a great way to meet people and fellow Miyazaki fans. It means so much to me that I’m starting to feel like part of a community. I’m hoping to find more opportunities to share minizakis in the future.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to have something you do just for you. I’ve received a lot of pressure to further monetize the minizakis through taking more commissions or just making more of them overall. I’m very lucky and deeply grateful that people connect with my work enough to buy it. But if something brings you peace, my advice would be to protect it so that it can be a restorative sanctuary that you can return to. If art is part of that, then choose when and how to share with the public, let it be on your own terms. Graphic design has been a great skill to have in my back pocket, but fighting for respect and recognition in the career has brought me far more heartache than joy. I’m doing my best to keep minizakis as peaceful for myself as I can and that makes each one so much more special to me and the amazing people that appreciate my work.

In addition to minizakis, I also work 2 part-time jobs, freelance, and do some of my own community organizing with Tiny Tech Zines. I don’t share this to brag about all the things I’m doing, but to share more about what artist life can look like. The artist narrative feels binary sometimes. Either you’re starving or you’re wildly successful, but there are so many ways to exist in between. I believe it’s important for working artists to share how they make things work and even how they’ve found success so that we can all learn and thrive together.

So to close out this section, here’s how I’ve been surviving lately:

First off, I’m very lucky to live with my boyfriend. Not worrying about rent in LA is huge and I’m grateful for his support everyday!

In order to cover all my own expenses, I work part-time at Be Nice Have Fun in Highland Park and Chunky Gifts in Chinatown. These have the added benefit of getting me into the world to feel the rhythm and pace of different parts of LA. It’s also an amazing way to organically meet people. As a person living with social anxiety, adhd, etc, these jobs are helping me become more comfortable and confident in social settings.

I also freelance as a social media manager and graphic designer which keeps me in touch with other industries and broader goings-on through my collaborators.

And finally, I co-organize Tiny Tech Zines. We’re a small collective of Queer, Trans, and POC artists using zines to share the ways we relate to technology. We define technology very openly, but keep a close eye on LA’s relationship to the digital tech industry at large. Very occasionally, we are paid for speaking or zine workshops, but outside of that, we work on a volunteer basis. Since we are self-funded, we move very slowly, and offer events as we can. Again, we’ve become good friends and prioritize a healthy working relationship so that the quality of our work can hopefully remain high.

It feels like a lot and I’m not the best at juggling everything, but money aside, each part of this life structure stimulates my curiosity, brings me so much joy, and makes me feel alive. When I sit down to create, I feel all of these experiences filtering into the minizakis.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to shoutout Destinie Escobedo, the owner of Be Nice Have Fun. Her shop highlights the cutest small gifts & stationery made by underrepresented communities. The shop also doubles as a community space where she invites local artists to offer workshops uplifting the community. She holds pop-ups that allow QTBIPOC makers to vend for free. Local organizations can activate her space for community events and mutual aid food distributions. It’s been so inspiring to witness! She’s shown me that community and business can be mutually beneficial. This is huge in LA, where gentrification feels almost unstoppable. So I had to shout her out! Go visit her in Highland Park! And thank you so much, Destinie, for everything you do!

Website: minizakis.com

Instagram: @minizakis

Image Credits
Photos by Rachel Simanjuntak & Saif Amath