A Value System in Care - Podcast, Collage, and Community
By Zariah Cameron
Published January 6th 2025
The KickBack Podcast and Community
The KBP Intro
As Adrienne Maree Brown says: Move at the speed of trust. In a world where we often find ourselves clawing our way through toxic and traumatic circumstances and environments brought about due to institutional inequities, it is a reprieve when we can breathe in clean air, regulating and calming our nervous system through environments that we can trust and have the autonomy to lean more into our true selves, in whatever form that looks like for us.
When the continuous comments of “I just want a place to exist and be”; “where I don’t have to fight to explain the importance of equity and care in design”; and “I want more care for people that look like me”, are consistently echoed from the voices of the most harmed, the calling for a space that centers the healing and care of the most marginalized becomes a resounding YES that couldn’t be ignored. An emergence of desperate pleas for a form of escapism that didn’t just offer temporary relief, but allowed for a re-entering into the world grounded, and for the world itself to be renewed through the joy that is sprouted in this space.
The concept of The KickBack Podcast was birthed through the result of the layoffs/firing and burnout happening with/to inclusive/equity design practitioners, including myself, and wanting to create a space of dialogue and healing, separate from these extremely toxic workplaces. This idea eventually evolved to service all designers of color and formulate discussions for how we can begin to collectively reimagine design and tech through healing and Joy in our work, life, and cultural experiences, through the lens of a cultural Kickback.
Due to various conversations on the podcast, along with the recent expansion of community workshop offerings, we developed a new model that may help inform how we approach creating care for ourselves and our community spaces.
The KBP Energy
The ultimate goal of The KickBack podcast is that when people become a part of the community, whether through listening, being a guest, or becoming a partner, the hope is that this space resembles the elements of a kickback. A Kickback can be
a small gathering between groups of friends, but is more than a get-together, and less than a party. However, it has the potential to evolve into a larger party. This kickback could be with friends or people that orientate with the same energy and vibe.
A Kickback is meant to feel safe, inviting, warm, electric, but self-soothing, energy-giving, and “a just can exist” space. In this chill environment, one can find a sense of togetherness, joy, and the freeing energy of showing up as oneself. This space can shift and direct moods, change mindsets through conversations and music selection, opening the door for new possibilities and leaving the space with even a refreshed outlook and new energy and nostalgic memories that were not present before stepping into the space.
This is the transcending feeling that we hope is transformed into the podcast for anyone who partakes as a co-designer/host, whether that is as a listener (our KBP crew), featured guest, or a workshop participant (a part of our community offering), we are all curating this community together in an incredibly unique and transferable way.
Community Process
The Intention
Our community process is a future-thinking culmination of how we approach our podcast format. The community process is an expansion of the KBP, to create a liberating experience that is beyond the audio walls of a podcast experience. This community process is truly immersive and engages the community to take our mission into action more directly. Having real-time reflection and implementation into their work and life.The goal of the kickback podcast community is to transcend and reimagine our spaces, experiences, and environments for wellness and care for the betterment of all beings. So, as a result, we decided to expand the offering of the podcast into a physical community space that encompassed aspects of wellness activations, workshops, masterclasses, and of course, our Kickback feel that drives this effort.
An MVP workshop at the “State of Black Design Conference” was launched called “A Value System Grounded in Care.” The result was having participants create their own zine together on Kickback of Care to design better workspaces for all. This centered on Black design students, educators, and design professionals/leaders.
The image above is a snapshot of the KBP’s mantra mentioned earlier, “Share everything, own nothing, but credit everyone,” with an added note of “P.S. Citations are love letters to Black Women”
We entered the space with a gathering ritual with respect and acknowledgment of the land we were on and other lands where we originally resided. We discussed the workshop’s main plan. I wanted this workshop to feel different than any workshop that they may have experienced.
We had a unique opportunity to have a diverse culmination of voices and energies in the room that I wanted to ensure I leveraged and channeled into collective reflection and conversation throughout the session. This could become a space where we could all collectively learn from each other, eliminating the power structure and welcoming an even level playing field of knowledge reciprocity.
The Zine Creation
It is rare we hold space for people to create, especially with their hands. I wanted people to step away with something tangible that they could always draw back to and reflect on it. In this modern age of technology, everything is done digitally, which can sometimes stifle the brain from unlocking a new level of creativity and revelation that pen-to-paper can give.For the creation of the zine itself, honoring the integrity, autonomy, and freedom of our kickback values, we gave no rules and restrictions for how the zine should be designed and created or what should go into the zine. Often in society, we create this misconception that care and liberation must fit in this one box, with restrictions and guidelines of how it is supposed to be.
Erasing the concept of “should”, but what does look like and what do you want it to look like, offers back agency where it may have been lost in the existence of how we exist and work. As adults, we are often limited in nature with the opportunity and space to explore, play, and reflect, to tune back into a childlike version of those who once blossomed at the beat of their individuality. I provided 3 focus areas to simmer on for their zine creations so that they had the complete freedom to work the entire duration of the session. Your KickBack nostalgia; healing journey; Designing Care for yourself: Your values, your rituals, your non-negotiables; Reimagining and dreaming of work environments grounded in wellness.
I offered a general outline of the session’s flow, ensuring participants would have space to explore their thoughts on physical paper through the creation of their physical zines, tapping into their creative side through more tactical experience. Allowing for fluidity and flexibility. This framework alleviated the pressure of having to follow a set “structure” or “manual” but more of a guide to reach their destination.
This guideline is a similar flow that is used during the conversations of the podcast episode: opening the space together, weaving a bit of nostalgia with Kickback essence questions, and having a transitional discussion as we move into aspects of healing and people’s creative sparks/expression, and how it ties to their life’s work, and then how their journeys can influence the type of worlds they want to create as people in their individual roles as a student, educator, or professional leader.
The Prompts
As stated above, each question prompt for each section in the soundtrack outline was intentionally developed to have people deeply hold space for their minds to think about their past, their present, and future of how they wanted to envision their actions. Each image is presented in the order that follows based on where they land on the outline number. These are just some of the prompts that were provided in the workshop but do not encompass the full prompted list of questions.2. The KickBack Activity
4. Soundtrack of Life Activity
5. Creating Better Workplaces
6. Kickback of Care Zine
The Reflection and Outcome
Reflection is a crucial part of moving forward and clearing space to dream up better worlds. Reflection allows us to analyze who we were, where we are, and where we want to go. Collective reflection brings about new dynamics in a shared space that invokes shared experience and healing while learning simultaneously and exiting the space renewed and rejuvenated in a way that ignites their own fire and others and the land in the process.With that in mind towards the end of the workshop, we had one collective discussion to reflect on what they created and how they felt about the overall content. It immersed interesting discussions regarding how they frame their classrooms centered on care in the curriculum or how they want to take rest more differently based on the content I presented in the workshop. Comments were that they left feeling refreshed and could not remember a time when they had space to reflect on their journeys and just create without an agenda or “end goal.” It was a beautiful space to cultivate community in a relaxed space that reduced the rigidness and structure of life.
Quotes of Reflection and Created Zines
A few direct reflections from what their experiences were like through this community zine-making workshop. Along with a few selective photos of some of the zines that were created during the session.“Zariah transported us to the intersection of design and wellness, by creating a safe space for generative reflection as we contemplated (through the making of our own zines) our own capabilities, catalysts and specific needs for healing and grace. I left the room better than when I came into it.”
Kevin Bethune, Author, Reimianging Design
“As a design researcher and facilitator myself, I felt like it was revelatory in terms of how she navigated helping us as participants learn, but giving us space to engage in unstructured reflection. It felt fun and productive, while also challenging the exhausting 'more is more' typical approach of design workshops. I highly recommend her workshops for both design leaders and practitioners."
Sheryl Cababa, Co-Founder, Optimistic Design
What’s Next?
As a collective, we should be creating spaces of release, communities not built on competition or suffering, where no labor is required to receive care, where existence is celebrated and is more than enough. Where a space is accessible at the foundation and an accommodation is given without question or reason.
We hope that through spaces and communities such as “The KickBack,” we can see beyond the present time to design a more speculative future that we can exist in the now as a collective, not just as individuals. Let us be a blueprint and a guide for how individuals seek out rest and care in their lives. Allow this to be a reminder of understanding that the importance of taking care of our own bodies is vital to properly give back to the land and all beings in a very life-giving way.
1st Kind to ourselves then kind to all; let us be aware of our own past mistakes, and internal healings that need to be done so that we can continue to heal this land and its people, causing the least amount of harm through the intentionality liberated care. Embracing the word care as a call to action rather than a checked box that will only satisfy the needs of the capitalistic world, we currently exist but have not yet thrived as a community. We hope that you can “kickback” with us.