creating MOMENTS
where we dream and design
our FELT FUTURES for
care, intimacy, and liberation
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
COLLECTION
EXPERIMENTAL CONCEPT
may we dream
and design
felt futures:
where our creative being and practice can feel the sensations of care, intimacy, and liberation is a manifestation of intuitive writings. In this collection—part guide, part experimental memoir—I offer glimpses into what I refer to as “felt futures” by inviting you to experience a creative social practice that embodies sensorial ways of being, knowing, relating, and making.
CREATIVE PRACTICE
SENSORIAL
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