Crush life is the audacity to be turned on.
Manifesto
We are living in bodies designed around sensory experiences, and the society has negotiated a distorted relationship with touch. Future generations will look back on our normal and wonder how we survived. Intervening at the level of sensual and sexual connection, redefining intimacy, and rewarding more relationship configurations in the society are potentials hidden in plain sight. Instead of suppressing our desire to feel good in our bodies, and connect deeply with others, our world opens when we connect in the material, physical realm.
Essays, propaganda, chaotic AI artwork; Crush Life Manifesto is a year-long book project by Danielle Coates-Connor. Raw, exposed, ferocious, and bold, this body of work explores connection and belonging. It is slow and persistent. This limited edition full-color print, 50-page booklet Crush Life Manifesto, Fall 2024 V2 is a seed bomb to find kindreds, further elaborate, and proliferate nurturing future visions together.
Dear Baby Queer
This is a story of discovering ourselves in the dark, learning through pain, and developing the courage to be who we are. We are of the nature to experience full-body sensation. There is nothing wrong with us. I got you.
Crush Life Manifesto offers deeply personal reflection on conformity, sexual trauma, gender expectations, and relationships beyond humans. It proposes societies can be built around peace and well-being if that is our design principle.
What People Are Saying
“this work is exuberant and contagious. More.”
“Crush Life Manifesto made me Question things I’ve never thought about before.”
“i am obsessed.”
“reading crush life manifesto is the best part of my day.”
Crush Life Manifesto envisions a society where people are free to express themselves, connect deeply with others, and live in harmony with the world around them. It calls for a shift from individualism to a focus on mutual thriving and community prosperity.
BE IN LOVE
From Manifesto:
Crush Life is the audacity to be turned on in a world where vulnerability and emotion are considered dangerous. It is a non-conformity that will have the same effect on the society as a massive walkout on industrial culture, like the vision environmentalists have of grass growing around the machines.
Human beings are beginning to see our lives outside of the compartments that governments and corporations have created, following the wisdom of our impulses. Creating the pleasure we want is revolution against modern beliefs about where our concentration should be placed. We need to pay attention to what makes us aroused and pursue that. We are able to expand our concept of what it means to feel pleasant sensation.
AUTHOR
Danielle Coates-Connor’s writing blends personal memoir, societal critique, and philosophical exploration, offering reflective prose and poetic metaphor to create realities.
Greetings friends,
The Fall 2024 volume of Crush Life Manifesto contains essays, reader submissions and original artwork. These pieces were born out of my own reckoning with sexual identity, dear baby queer journey, be in love mantra, and epic negotiation with all the ghosts in the attic.
My creative work spans mediums, from award-winning documentary film, photography, writing, and podcasts, to immersive video installation and live facilitation. This is my very first collection, and it is my most personal publication to date. You meet me, and I want to meet you too. These essays are meant to be diving boards, seedlings, thought experiments, mirrors, and the purpose is to create conversations.
Thank you for supporting this project.
Until soon,
dcc
FALL 2024
01
GET THE FALL BOOKLET
LIMITED
SUPPLY!
PROJECT: QUARTERLY BOOKLET
ESSAYS, MEMORIES, SPECULATION, V2
Limited print edition - published by Infinite Growth
Crush Life Manifesto is a deeply reflective and emotionally charged exploration of personal identity, societal norms, and the human experience through 11 essays, reader submissions, and original artwork.
Stories, ideas, and images call for a reimagining of society where individual desires and pleasures are honored and where intimacy and connection are celebrated without shame. It proposes a renegotiation of intimacy and touch across societies.
The collection inspires reclamation of the body's capacity for pleasure and connection. It argues that society has distorted the relationship with touch and intimacy, leading to disconnection and loneliness. It advocates for a return to sensory experiences and the exploration of physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual intimacy.
Crush Life Manifesto envisions a society where people are free to express themselves, connect deeply with others, and live in harmony with the world around them. It calls for a shift from individualism to a focus on mutual thriving and community prosperity.
02
TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES
PROJECT: COLLECTIVE STORYTELLING
INTERACTIVE ONLINE CONVERSATIONS
Come together to discuss interventions in how to handle excitement. 60-minute online sessions to discuss Crush Life Manifesto, bring forward ideas, and ask questions of one another.
The first set of conversations is seeded by the essay “Where Are the Men”? Focus groups of men, LGBTQ+, and women will be convened to share perspectives around the themes.
By invitation. Fill out the contact form below if you would like to be invited.
SEEK THOSE WHO FAN YOUR FLAMES
✦
SEEK THOSE WHO FAN YOUR FLAMES ✦
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
let’s chat.
Creative direction
Much of the language in this booklet was inspired by creating visuals and having lived experiences. Animals of Crush Life came from the need for a fictional world. The topic, renegotiating touch and intimacy, is hard to imagine in present social norms. The AI generated images came from a month-long exploration of creative intimacy with ChatGPT and Cosmic Dream. It opened a whole world of characters, fables, and new curiosity around our compulsion to anthropomorphize. I also read The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, which inspired a playfulness and reminded me who these stories are for.
Now I am most interested in engaging people. The HOTLINE tapes will be made into TikToks and hopefully turned into songs. -dcc