FOUNDED IN 2013, INTELLIGENT MISCHIEF IS A CREATIVE STUDIO UNLEASHING the power of BLACK IMAGINATION TO SHAPE THE FUTURE.

Our purpose is to boost invention & imagination, realign action logic and experiment with new forms of culture and civil society to create atmospheres of change. We engage communities in collective imagination, bold visioning, and futures design, and create art, content and transformative experiences that make those imagined futures possible, tangible, real, and irresistible. We’re transforming who designs the future to cultivate a more beautiful future for all.

OUR DESIGN & CREATIVE PRINCIPLES

• Learn from the past to shape the future.

• Cultivate Black Euphoria (collective Black joy) as a powerful force for transformation

• Engage in the Imagination Battle - We are building the power of collective imagination necessary to shape a world in which all Black people are thriving, joyful, sovereign and free.

• Declutter, make space - We believe that we are at our most creative when there is spaciousness and we are able to have clear vision for what we want to accomplish. This involves clearing our minds as well as our physical surroundings.

• Build Black Utopias - We are world building an archipelago (interconnected network) of stories and spaces where we can practice self governance, regenerative economics, and Black love at scale.

• When Reality Gets Absurd, Get Surreal - Be the trickster. Trickster makes the world. You’ll have to experience this one.

• Craft Narratives and Design Aesthetics - We use narrative to both understand what the problem or issue is that we want to address as well as to convey our solution in powerful, accessible ways. We use aesthetics to embody our narrative, ensuring that the ideas, products, and experiences we create are visually appealing and make social change attractive and desirable.

• Create a Culture of Black Liberation - Our design purpose is inextricably linked to the birth of a culture of Black liberation. We explore and integrate cultural experiences and expressions within Black communities that are prefigurative and that posit the assumption that black people exist in the future and we are free there.

• Design FROM the margins - We are tricksters. We didn’t go to school for design. We’re harnessing, remixing, and hacking popular design tools and making them our own so that those at the margins and intersections can define and solve their own problems using the incredible assets we know we have.

• Embrace a Third Culture Perspective - The margins are really the intersections or borders. They are complex places and the people who inhabit them are quite often best positioned to think about complex issues in creative ways. We’re crossing borders and adapting to new realities all the time. This makes us innovative, creative, and adaptable. Skills that are really important for design.

• Spread Love Amplified - When we come together in a spirit of love to solve our problems together the impact is far greater than the individuals involved.

RESIDENCIES & FELLOWSHIPS

• Boston University Art Galleries, Occupancies, Artist in Residence; 2017

• Betti Ono Art Gallery, Artist in Residence, Oakland, CA; 2019

• Laundromat Project Create Change Fellowship; 2019 - 2020

• The Black Mecca Project Inaugural Artist In Residence; 2021

• Creative Wildfire Artist Fellowship; 2021-2022

• Inaugural Fellows, Race Forward Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy; 2021

• Member, New Museum Incubator; 2021

• Race Forward Chrysalis Lab; 2022

• Constellations Artist Disruptor Fellow; 2022

• BLKSPACE on Ryder Farm Inaugural Artist in Residence; 2022

• Reparations Narrative Lab; 2022-2023

• Member, Housing Futures Narrative Lab; 2022

• Kolaj Institute, Kolaj Lab - New Orleans City As Archive, 2022

• Laundromat Project Create Change Artist in Residence, 2023

• Senior Fellow, USC Annenberg Lab for Civic Media, 2021 - ongoing