Ashima Shiraishi Instagram – Honored to be part of this Central Park bouldering feature amongst fine company and friends! @nymag @curbed 🫶
(pic #1) My appreciation for this mound of Manhattan schist is woven into my early memories of being mentored by Yuki-san (Rat Rock’s steward / “spiritual godfather” in the late 80s- early 2000s) who expanded my view of play from the Heckscher Playground to the adjacent boulder a few feet away. Grateful for this foundation of viewing climbing as a vertical play-scape 🛝 As the playground serves as an early relational platform of forging social connections with fellow play enthusiasts, so too does the boulder act as a type of conduit through which spatial, social, geological and ecological relations can be established 🕸️ love all the relationships I’ve been able to find thru rocks and the interactions keep growing !
(pic #4) Never thought my Olmsted reference would make it into this piece 😆 so much to pack in here but here’s a lil intro by Robert Smithson in Frederick Law Olmsted and the Dialectical Landscape that’s added depth to my connection with this rock:
IMAGINE YOURSELF IN CENTRAL PARK one million years ago. You would be standing on a vast ice sheet, a 4,000-mile glacial wall, as much as 2,000 feet thick. Alone on the vast glacier, you would not sense its slow crushing, scraping, ripping movement as it advanced south, leaving great masses of rock debris in its wake. Under the frozen depths, where the carousel now stands, you would not notice the effect on the bedrock as the glacier dragged itself along.
so grateful I get to represent/be part of the vibrant NYC climbing community 💖💖💖💖💖
Big thanks to @cherki for ur tireless persistence in showing this special place in the manyyyy multitudes it contains 🌟
Photos: @cherkis
Words: @cliomiso | Posted on 10/Mar/2024 01:21:55
