Visual Theory Mapping is a dynamic and relational creation. An essential oil and a North Star which helps viewers feel and do something in response. Visual Theory Maps ask questions that will keep us open.

Visual Theory Mapping is an embodied practice that was developed by myself and Ra Malika Imhotep in 2018 when we co-convened study around our Embodied Spiritual-Political Education Project, The Church of Black feminist Thought. What started with the idea to collaborate on a black feminist theory zine blossomed into an intergenerational group committed to being in rigorous, intimate relationships with the work of black feminist writers and artists.  Over the course of a year, we gathered around potluck food, altars, and embodied practice to study and celebrate the works of Octavia Butler, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Toni Morrison, Nina Simone, Ula Y. Taylor, Ntozake Shange, local artist Amara T. Smith, The Beautiful Being Project, Patricia Hill Collins, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks.  This, we compiled into a Black feminist Study Theory Atlas.

In the introduction of the atlas, we offer this about Visual Theory Maps:

“How do we express what is felt at a gathering? How do we honor the meaning created between words? And how do we celebrate black feminist thinkers in ways that amplify their work to everyone? These are some of the questions that the visual theory maps begin to answer. We believe that our theory maps activate a more imaginative way to access learning that nourishes the spirit. The collective counter-imaginations and strategies for how to thrive in our minds, bodies, and spirits are thus shared in a format that illuminates a path toward living with theory/knowledge/wisdom, rather than mastering it.”

As an Asian co-conspirator of Black feminism, I am indebted to the way my learnings/collaboration/friendships with Ra and other Black feminist scholars have offered a shape for my gifts to be channeled into a practice that supports our collective liberation.

In closing, whether you work with me in the middle of a writing/research project or at the end, my hope is that Visual Theory Maps can help you and your audiences envision our collective liberation more clearly.

Some past examples