October 21, 2021  /  Leave a comment

From What If to What Next: Episode Thirty Two

This episode is absolutely one of my favourites so far. What is the experience among communities of colour of striving to sustain an imaginative life in the context of a wider culture that is often hostile to it? Is there such a thing as a distinctly black imagination, and if so, how does it differ from what we might think of as a ‘white imagination’?  A little more about your guests…

Natasha Marin is an antiracism consultant based in Seattle, specializing in communications, community building, and digital engagement. She is the curator of Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures and a conceptual artist whose people-centered projects have circled the globe since 2012 and have been recognized and widely acknowledged. BLACK IMAGINATION—a series of conceptual exhibitions—amplifying, centering, and holding sacred a diverse sample of voices including LGBTQIA+ black youth, incarcerated black women, black folks with disabilities, unsheltered black folks, and black children was her bravest work thus far. Her viral web-based project, Reparations, engaged a quarter of a million people worldwide in the practice of “leveraging privilege,” and earned Marin, a mother of two, death threats by the dozens.

Natalie Creary is the Programme Delivery Director for Black Thrive Lambeth. The cross-sector partnership works to dismantle the structural barriers that create and sustain mental health inequalities for Black African and African-Caribbean communities in Lambeth. She has a long-standing interest in approaches that tackle the root causes of inequality and push conventional boundaries. Her interest lies in working with communities and grassroots organisations to decolonise knowledge and to create opportunities for communities to have ownership of their stories and the solutions they deliver to address the social challenges they may face. Her work and research explore how race, age, class, gender and sexuality intersect to shape the health and wellbeing experiences of Black and mixed race communities. She has also completed postgraduate studies in Health Psychology and lectures on health inequality, quality improvement methodologies and health promotion for Middlesex University’s MSc Public Health. She is also on the editorial board of the Lancet Psychiatry.