✨ Introducing: The Pathways to Liberation Project 🌈
💭 It's time to let your imagination run wild! 💫
Hey y’all!
First off, I hope that all of you are giving yourselves space for grace and care as we (hopefully) transition into these cooler seasons, especially while the world is quite literally on fire in more ways than one. 🫂
I know, I know, long time no see (or, long time no “read”) — but, I am very excited to share that the first TALMBAT project is coming soon to an online space near you.
Introducing: The Pathways to Liberation Project (PHASE I)
(Check out the announcement, and follow along on Instagram via @TALMBAT)
This journey of exploration began in early 2023 (as I was entering my semesters in university). During the months of February and March, I was in deep study and rumination about freedoms to learn, to dream, to express & embody. Everyday there were a series of new cases of educational bans and surveillant legislation against communities across the U.S. – especially in the South – barricading people (especially youth) from opportunities to expand their knowledge through being immersed in the stories of others. In the US, within the past school-year, there were 10,000+ documented book bans and a myriad of universities that have eradicated DEI & Belonging programs (and here in Alabama this year, they decided to ban DEI boards/offices in schools, pass a bizarre and transphobic “bathroom bill” for higher education institutions, and restrict funding for college student groups that specifically support People of Color and Queer People).
These kinds of policies are threats against our own sense of self, and how we interact with the world that we’ve been handed. In reflecting on all of this, I realized that there was a much more serious source of suspension taking place here, and throughout the world — they are trying to censor and suppress our own imaginations.
This propelled me to go into even deeper examination of the wonder(s) of liberation, and guided me towards the crafting of this project — my graduating thesis, Education and Imagination as Pathways Toward Liberation.
As we encounter a world where they are attempting to place bans against our stories, our bodies, and our being — we have to imagine and craft the future that we deserve. One that extends beyond these genocidal nightmares.
A future that nurtures and illuminates the fullness of ourselves and the communities that surround us.
It’s time to let your imagination run wild.
— Jasmine Lewis, 2024
Literally every system that we exist in was made up, imagined by groups of people who definitely didn’t have our best interests at heart. Who’d rather build for exploitative power, structural violence, and control, rather than for the care and sustaining of our communities.
They’ve dreamt of destruction and erasure, of uniformity. But we (us storytellers, writers, scholars, designers, artists, and Imaginative Visionaries) dream of (r)evolution, of freedom, of the possibility for realities that are colorful, prismatic, and prioritize solidarity.
Every movement for liberation has placed imagination and education at the forefront — envisioning new worlds, new words, new schools, new ways of thinking and dreaming and being. TALMBAT and the Pathways to Liberation project are here to do the same.
Practicing the powerful traditions of sharing oral history and archiving, this project emphasizes the importance of protecting and preserving our stories in order to provide that same sense of care and guardianship over our own imaginations. It id an opportunity to hold space for collective learning and reckoning. The PTL Project deeply engages knowledge, envisioning, and lived experience as transformative vessels for change & worldbuilding.
For the first iteration of the PTL Project, I am grateful to soon share with you all a collection of archived conversations with some phenomenal trailblazers, who I call the “Imaginative Visionaries.” We talked about some of the moments in their lives that illuminated how learning and imagining have supported them in channeling their ambitions to become who they are now and the ways that they build towards liberation. They are social entrepreneurs, librarians, communication specialists, emotional wellness advocates, organizers for accessing mentorship, creative art directors, educators/education specialists, essayists, justice movement-leaders, theatrical actors — each one a luminous reminder of why we should harness our imaginations.
This project is such a labor of love, and I’m very-very excited to share it with you all!
More info coming soon! To stay updated, keep an eye out for upcoming editions of this newsletter, and make sure you are following @TALMBAT on Instagram. And feel free to spread the word about TALMBAT and The Pathways to Liberation Project!
A couple final thangs:
Numero Uno: 🌟 If you’re a new member, or just haven’t had the time yet, make sure you fill out the TALMBAT Survey so that I can keep your information up to date, and learn a little more about your work and what you’re passionate about.
Lastly: As we are only a few days away from one of the most monumental elections in our country’s history — while also witnessing the immeasurable horrors of multiple genocides — we must understand that, although the presidential election is one of the biggest organized opportunities for civic engagement, it is not the end all be all. Nor is it the only way that we should show up for and represent our communities and our values.
Regardless of what the electoral college has to say, we do mutual aid, we share space, we have conversations and share oral histories, we teach each other, we organize, and we advocate.
We have to engage our imaginations and exercise our muscle to dream-up a nation – and a world – that mirrors the care and safety that will sustain our movements, our livelihood, and our futures.
Okay, that’s all for now. Welcome to Phase I of The PTL Project. (So excited for Phase II, coming soon!)
Wishing you much joy, and a smooth transition into the cooler seasons.
🤎
— 💌 Your TALMBAT Imaginative Visionary, Jasmine Lewis
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