I’m Moses Sumney, and I’m a multidisciplinary storyteller
living in Asheville, North Carolina.
I love Asheville because of the nature
and just all these pockets of joy.
People feel really comfortable to express themselves in Asheville.
That’s my favorite part about it.
Today, we’re going around town
and meeting some of the pillars of the local creative community.
I left L.A. in 2017
and didn’t really know where I wanted to land next,
and I toured for a bit and wandered for a bit
and moved to London for a bit
and thought that’s where I wanted to be.
And after I got there,
I realized I wasn’t focused enough; I wasn’t alone enough.
And I wanted to try living somewhere where I could be
in constant communion with the birds and the trees,
so I left,
and I moved here.
Right now, we’re chilling in my backyard.
It’s the beginning of spring,
so the leaves haven’t fully grown in yet,
but once they do, it kind of feels like living in a forest.
I’m learning so much from the environment,
from literally just being in nature and soaking that in.
But also, the community spirit in Asheville is highly collaborative,
and everyone kind of knows everyone in that small-town way.
Right now, we are walking through West Asheville.
We are headed to what used to be The Mothlight
and will soon be Different Wrld.
The Mothlight is the first place I headlined in Asheville
before I moved here.
It was one of the many venues in America
that closed down when the pandemic happened.
But Honey swooped in and saved the day,
and on her wings was Silver,
who's also developing a restaurant in the space.
So we’re going to meet both of them and see what’s up.
-Hello. -Hey.
What’s up?
Welcome to my crib. This is my crib.
So, tell us what Different Wrld is.
Different Wrld is, in my eyes, like a culture house.
We cover a lot of different grounds,
but the main thing is to make sure that we’re progressing
whatever it is that we’re involved in
and making sure that people feel safe and comfortable.
You have access to equipment, resources, and education,
but mostly a creative community
because I feel like that is so important
in the process of creating anything.
If you didn’t know, you would just think it was a coffee shop.
The same thing with Asheville.
If you just walked in the town, you’d just think it’s a big brewery.
But in reality, there’s all these creative people here,
who are doing so many different projects on their own right
and kind of just creating to create, which is really special here.
I’m Coco Villa.
Moses and I met, when he was looking for choreographers,
he asked me to kind of do a test trial to dance together.
I think it’s really important connecting with like-minded folks
or people that might be working in similar mediums,
and it’s very exciting to bring those people together
and collaborate.
My name is Silver Cousler.
I’m going to be the chef of
Asheville’s first Filipino restaurant.
I was able to kind of identify
the ways in which Southern food intersects with Filipinx food.
I ended up calling Honey
and just seeing what her plans were for the kitchen,
and basically, we got so excited to be involved in the building together,
we decided to just do it.
I wanted us to meet Tamarya because she’s a young farmer,
and she’s also very knowledgeable about the lineage of Black farmers
and Black people who work the land, particularly in the South,
particularly in North Carolina.
And I think she carries both the weight
and the legacy of that lineage in her work.
The land we’re on is the ancestral land of the Eastern Band of Cherokee
and the Yuchi people
and also enslaved folks whose stories aren’t told.
So whenever I think about the history of Asheville and its land,
I mostly think about the Brown and Black people who are here.
As a Black farmer in Asheville,
What’s the change that you would like to affect locally?
I would love for Black and Brown folks to get land,
be able to get fresh food, have fresh grocery stores,
markets that are owned by Black and Brown people.
Because when you look at Asheville,
sometimes you don’t think it’s diverse,
but people are in little pockets,
and one of my hopes is to see those people thrive.
So often, when we think of creativity.
We don’t think of what it means to rear animals and grow plants
and how to keep the soil alive,
and so that’s been quite inspiring to my process.
I started collaborating with Hunter by shooting a collection for them.
Now we’re headed over to shoot some of their new designs.
I’m Hunter Savoy Jaffe.
I founded Naassene, which is a leatherwear label,
essentially harnessing the ability of the body to tap into itself.
Seeing persons physically embodied within the pieces
and what that does to their aura and what that does to their being
and how they hold their bodies differently
matters.
They make me feel very structured, very sexy, very aware of my body,
very in my body and challenged.
I was particularly interested in this group of people coming together
because there’s such a deep spirituality to what they do,
and I’m in constant awe of them
and in awe of what their positioning in a town like this means
and what it can mean for the future.
I think a lot about what it means to decentralize the cities,
but also the culture of creativity.
If you're here, you really are here
because you really found something that you fell in love with.
Community has really become a focal point in my life,
and we're redefining so many narratives.
I just feel really invested in this place because it is so special,
and there’s a really, really honest energy here that I love.
Living here, there really is this idea of creative abundance,
and expanding the diversity of the community here
is a responsibility that we all share.