Hiii friends, 

It’s been so long since I’ve used this page consistently and for the next few months I’ll be posting more frequently to document my research in Nguyen, Senegal. 

First, I'd like to re-introduce myself because sometimes I even forget –read as, fail to acknowledge–who I am as an artist. I am Tia Lorenna, a cultural anthropologist, a storyteller, a connection creator, a bridge between the diaspora, and an educator. Too often I feel like my work is invisible because I haven't always published it or explicitly spoken about it online, and my professional work has always involved some sector of education, never art directly.

As I'm inching closer to 10 years in my professional career, I'm finally able to see how it all connects. I will be traveling this summer with more intention and with permission from the communities I'm becoming a part of to document and interview their artistic processes. I am relying on my project management skills to hire and train my project team, identify the research location, create and finalize my budget, etc. My anthropological and research skills are helping me to formulate questions, synthesize articles, and ground my research in historical records as much as tacit knowledge (ways of knowing through experience). And my personality– funny, caring, and constantly curious– has allowed me to build trust with people where verbal language fails. 

But before I jump into where I am now, I'd be remiss to not talk about where my ability to see similarities in Blackness globally all began. Few of you may know that in Spring 2016, I studied abroad in Cape Coast, Ghana (s/o UCC). I've always been very Afro-Centric as the old people would say (like, I got fried once for wearing a fro in 4th grade. Baby, those kids looked at a picture of Mae Jamison and said, "you think you her, huh?" I've never looked at Mae Jamison the same). So, the decision to study abroad in Ghana–and not Europe–didn't really shock anyone but it still shocked people because, why would I take it that far (their sentiments, not mine). But it was there that I started to see how big the Black African world was and craved more.

Prior to living in Ghana, I'd already started to unpack the concept that Blackness is a monolithic identity because the people I'd gone to high school with were so incredibly different from the people I'd gone to grammar school with. (Also, is grammar school a Chicago thing? I said that to a Philly homie recently and they had no idea what I was talking about.) But living in a totally different Black country snatched my eyes open and allowed me to see that there were infinite ways to be 'Black' not to mention that Ghanaians in Ghana didn't even see themselves as 'Black' (generally speaking) unless they'd had some concept of Global Blackness. This is when I began to understand race as a construct and even more, started to understand that pretty much everything is made up (that has become one of my most unappreciated features, not allowing myself to be boxed in).

Today (and everyday), I am thankful for the 7th grade Tia who had no idea what life would look like when she’d suggested to her mom that perhaps a school transfer was in order because the school she’d gone to since kindergarten no longer served her. And I thank the Tia who forged mom’s signature so that they could take the selective enrollment test and beyond that the Tia who decided to go to college. These are a few of my canon events and a few cherished reminders that even though I cannot see my path, as long as I take the next step, it will continue to reveal itself. 

I look forward to sharing the past ten years more publicly with you all. To stay up to date on blog posts and project advancements, please visit TeaHouseCollective.US