The Black Thought Project
Alicia is the creator and visionary behind the Black Thought Project which creates sanctuaries for Black expression. She collaborates with communities to develop interactive, community-based art installations that Center Blackness in public, engaging Black people from a place of joy, healing and possibility. As part of the project, she trains and invites people who are not Black to protect, witness and honor Black people and our sacred spaces of expression so all of our bodies may experience being in right-relationship to Blackness and each other. Alicia created the Black Thought Project as an embodied experiment in Centering Blackness and narrative shift: testing whether communities could learn to protect sanctuaries for Black expression, whether Black folx could feel safe enough to express and share vulnerably in response to questions centering their experience, and providing the basis of new, liberating societal narratives and collective beliefs. The results have been affirmative. Centering Blackness proves to be a deeply transformative experience in which participants feel the possibility of being in right-relationship to each other and Black folx are able to express our deepest longings and beliefs for liberated lives and societies.
To date, Alicia has activated more than 15 Black Thought Walls in 4 cities, documenting more than 1,500 written responses and 60 audio recordings from Black folx about love, healing, safety, repair, freedom and legacy. Her installations stretch far and wide, blanketing city blocks in affirmations of love for Black people. This ongoing experiment continues to shed light on what it means to Center Blackness and is a primary site of practice, facilitation and community engagement for Alicia. A highly accessible and replicable project, Alicia receives many requests to build and activate Black Thought Walls and looks forward to taking the project international. She sees this as a global project and is looking to bring the Black Thought Project to Johannesburg, Paris, and London, among other locations. For more information on the purpose, process, impacts and deep analysis of the Black Thought Project, download Alicia’s recently published report.
