Ridhi D’Cruz

Ridhi (they/them) is a gender queer, neurospicy Malayali who grew up in the city of Bangalore in southern India and moved to the unceded lands of the Chinook people (Portland, OR) in 2010 to pursue a graduate program in sociocultural and applied anthropology. Trained as a journalist and anthropologist, they fondly identify as a learner, facilitator and artist. Their life artistry roots at the intersections of place, healing, design and creativity. They have dedicated over a decade of their life to working with communities to cultivate liberatory processes, projects and places that enrich our belonging to ourselves, to Land and to each other. They strive to honor and benefit the original peoples as well as their sacred and stolen lands with whom they are deepening relationship with.

Ridhi has been cultivating a place justice practice for over a decade on Chinook lands. Beyond being a co-facilitator and council member of Moon & Mirror Apprenticeship Program since 2020, they are involved in various aligned initiatives including being a nature educator and adventure guide with and for QT/BIPOC community through Wild Diversity since 2022. They have also been curating collaborative place justice installations with memory activists – Vanport Mosaic. Ridhi also humbly supports the urban Indigenous community involved at the Native Gathering Garden at Cully Park and the Justice for Justice for Keaton Otis Memorial Art Project.

More recently, Ridhi has begun organizing with the Oregon Caste Abolition Collective and is working on a BIPOC Collective Oracle Deck through their core residency at Stelo Arts. After a decade in the field as an urban Permaculture practitioner & educator through their previous work at City Repair Project, Ridhi completed their Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) program and the Permaculture Teacher Training (PTT) hosted by Aranya Agricultural Alternatives in 2023 and is excited to be returning to organizing their homelands. They hope to continue to root into the fertile soil of climate justice and caste abolition work in the lands now called India.