Photo Credits: Whitney GC
LaTosha Monique | Bearing Word | 2022
Tate Modern | London
Photo: Whitney GC
Bearing Word | Latisha Monique
Tate Modern | London
Methods & Methodology
How was this work completed?
Semi-Structured Interactive Interviews
Photo: Whitney GC
In-Person Interview Site
Intercultural Center | Swarthmore College
The Black Creative Wellness Archive is a dedicated to uncovering what it means for Black, Queer, and marginalized bodies feel well and liberated. In order to accomplish this, I wanted to hear directly from Black Creatives.
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The 8 interviews I conducted for this project are better understood as conversations. They are semi-structured with a baseline of 11 potential questions meant to guide interviewee's thinking while leaving flexibility for organic open-ended conversation. They are interactive, shared experiences where both myself as the researcher and Creatives as participants have agency to input what they feel is most needed to the narrative of each interview.
Sample Interview Questions
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How do you understand Blackness [and Queerness]? For you, what does it mean to be Black [and Queer] and how does this show up in your everyday life?
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In what ways, if at all, are your Blackness and Queerness (or other marginalized identities) connected? How does this influence the way you move through the world?
Identity
Liberation
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Lastly, when are you free? What is your ideal vision of liberation? How does your creative work help to achieve this?
Creativity & Wellness
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What does wellness, specifically Black Wellness, mean to you? Why, if at all, is it important to you? What are ways that you take care of yourself?
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When do you feel your happiest/at your best self? What hinders your wellness?
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How did you find [respective creative medium] and what keeps you there?
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How would you describe the feeling of creating? What does it feel like for you to create your work? What emotions does it bring up for you?
Participants
Photo: Whitney GC
Black Cultural Market | Brixton, London
The vision for gathering Black Creatives to participate in this project was diversity in order to curate the most expansive results possible. Diversity of creative mediums, diversity in parts of the Diaspora, diversity in Black identity, diversity in level of closeness to one another, and diversity in format of interviews.
Creatives in this project are:
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a part of the global African Diaspora and self-identity as Black
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of legal age or older
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from multiple parts of my network – some are close friends while others I met for the first time
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multi-hyphenates – involved in many different creative forms
Methodology
Why is this research done this way? Where do my methods come from?
Overview
Before beginning this work, it was important to think about the ways of producing knowledge, or epistemology, that best align with this thesis. I asked: What do we consider to be "knowledge" and who gets to create it? Who is excluded from this and what approaches to knowledge creation would I like to uplift?
Black Queer Feminism & Womanism
Photo: Whitney GC
Lit Review & Methods Readings | Swarthmore College
My answer to these questions pull from Black Queer Feminism & Womanism's emphasis on marginalized people as primary sources. That our lived experiences are sites of wisdom and should be cared for, valued, and respected. Thus, this project features conversations directly with Black Creatives to share their experiences with identity, creativity, wellness, and liberation.
Interpretivism & Inductive Reasoning
Furthermore, I adopt an interpretivist lens that the reality we live in is subjective for every individual. Rather than there being concrete social "facts" or "rules" that person adheres to, interpretivism understands that individuals have complex, unique experiences that shape their reality and must be explored in-depth. I also utilize inductive logic, a "bottom-up" approach that looks to the voices of Creatives to dictate the themes & theories that emerge from this work rather beginning with theory and working backwards to interview data.
