rae xiang

visual storytelling

I believe we all exist to belong.

To a place, to a time, to each other.


I breathe life into stories using my perspective as a autistic, queer, Chinese American animator.



SPEAKING & WRITING

Motion Plus Design

RGB Design Conference

Ball Pit Mag

CLIENTS

  • SFMOMA
  • Patreon

Google



FESTIVAL SCREENINGS

MoMI

BAMPFA

Gray Area



CONTACT

spookydaikon@gmal.com




Wanna say hi? Drop a line below :)


hello@rachelxiang.com

Youtube



Currently based in San Francisco

 

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BIO

When the limbs of my body were still finding their form, my mother worked as a housekeeper at a Holiday Inn near Louisville.


It was 1995 and my parents were Chinese immigrants who had left their paths as engineering students to start again. And they would, over and over, through the South, Midwest, back to China and eventually the West Coast.


Sturdy enough to pace new lands, my father’s wide feet precede my own, but my mothers 精 sense of opportunity was my unseen inheritance.

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In 2015, I kicked my way into Airbnb, a then teenage but darling start-up. Years later, I’d have enough perspective to see the subtle beauty in the distributed systems I worked with – self-healing, fault-tolerant leader election – the illusion of perfect uptime (on a good day). The ideal of stability we seek to promise each other.



At that age though, I craved something else. Dynamism, fragility, and a life as wild as the seasons. Through successive purpose-finding trials (and errors), I crossed paths with animation director Bee Grandinetti. I was inspired by her work to study at her alma mater in Stockholm.

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It was one of the most meaningful yet difficult to comprehend years of my life. School was fantastic but I was left without enough of a Self to split three-ways into a Swede-Chinese-American.


In August 2024, moved back to San Francisco with a new appreciation of the culture I had taken for granted. Finding footing in the art community and reconnected with my families of all forms, I now stand face to face with the humans who have made me who I am today.


I'm working to find a publisher for my upcoming children's book, teaching through the Mindful Arts SF Ed Fund program, and telling short stories on internet.