creating MOMENTS
where we dream and design
our FELT FUTURES* for
care, intimacy, and liberation
*Felt futures is an experimental concept I’m affirming in my creative social practice and introducing in my emerging book collection.
It's stimulated from a found image (attribution unknown) that shares the statement: "a more human-felt future is a more sensorial one, one designed for and with our senses."
Feeling limited by the term “human-felt,” I was more excited by the “felt future” within this statement because it speaks to the futures I’ve been rehearsing for years—futures that are sensorial and designed for and with our senses, yes—but also futures that recognize we are creative, intuitive beings meant to experience an intimate relationship with our bodies, our more-than-human worlds, and our dreams for care and liberation.
Felt futures weave sensorial ways of being, knowing, relating, and making that keep us connected and in our aliveness.
Felt futures live inside of us and guide us closer to what we long for and love.
Felt futures open up places of possibility where the presence of care, intimacy, and liberation can be deeply known.
call me
denise shanté
(she/her)
MULTIDIMENSIONAL DESIGNER
CREATIVE CO-CONSPIRATOR
INTUITIVE WRITER
birthed from a lineage
of poets, artists, teachers, community organizers,
and caregivers,
my design practice is naturally multidimensional, creating itself through many expressions as an ode to freedom. These experiments come with an inherent desire to weave more caring and liberating ways of being, sensing, relating, and making into our lives and work. They may take the form of storytelling technologies, worldmaking, experience design, care-centric guidance, creative self-practice, and intimate communities. They call on our sensorial knowledge and trusted dreams. They invite us to illuminate and (re)shape the politic from which we create.
As a Black, queer, and disabled woman, I come with lifetimes of body knowledge and visionary rigor. I’m devoted to change and love co-conspiring to nurture new worlds into existence that (re)connect us with the expansive layers of ourselves, our more-than-human worlds, and our commitments. Care, intimacy, and liberation are throughlines across my work, creating moments for us to collectively dream, design, write, and feel the futures we long for and love.
FEATURED EXPERIMENT
ESSAY
ZINE
the life-giving
consequences of
creative rest
A personal essay on reckoning with what happens to creative practice when choosing slowness and softness. After noticing how my life, work and relationships have changed since taking a breath amid grief and turmoil, this essay captures a glimpse of what it feels like to resist systems of exhaustion while centering care.
SLOWNESS
CREATIVE REST
SOFTNESS
felt futures open up
places of possibility
explore these embodied experiments as I respond to the inquiry:
what becomes possible in my practice if I listen to where and how the presence of care, intimacy, and liberation can be deeply known?
storytelling
technologies
world
making
experience
design
care-centric
guidance
creative
self-practice
intimate
communities
Uplifting, inspiring, heartwarming & reflective—Denise Shante’s talk checks all the above.
I found myself deeply resonating with her story and life philosophies, while gaining clarity in my own practice as a designer. Gems from her sharing are still constantly being referenced amongst my classmates, as we navigate social complexity and designing for justice. Denise Shanté’s journey in designing her life’s work serves as a guiding light, to a future filled with creative abundance and community care.
— Esther Jingxin Yip