We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Saki Savavi Bowman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Saki below.
Saki, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
My forthcoming counter cartographical collection titled “The Great Hoodoo Migration Maps”, by far! It features four maps that depict the Great Migration and Hoodoo Lineages that followed, the Power Plants whose history in America runs parallel to the Black American experience, Speculative Maps that reimagine how we visualize complex biographies, and a Map that holds them all!
During the Great Migration or Black Migration (1890’s -1970’s), Black Americans migrated from Southern States to Northern states (and sometimes West), to escape the overbearing stench of Southern Racism. I felt it important to not only depict this particular migration, but to also illustrate the Hoodoo Lineages that traveled with them. This feels particularly important for me since I don’t remember ever seeing any maps that reflected Black American contribution to this country. In fact, it almost feels taboo to feel connected to this land. And still, our connection is sound and true. We deserve to see our stewardship represented in cartographical charts. I intend to continue filling that gap.
Accompanying these maps are essays, articles, data visualizations, and more. It’s such a massive scope of work and I see it living in classrooms, universities, text books, etc!
Saki, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My interest in cartography (mapmaking) has been with me since I was a kid memorizing the subway maps in Philly with my father. He ensured that I understood the importance of always knowing where I am and observing my surroundings. This totally shaped my spatial confidence and although I loved taking SEPTA with him, my recollection was more so to make him proud than it was me actually grasping my surroundings. But still, the joy remained. I remember the moment the map was finally committed to memory and the shift of belonging to my environment that deepened when it happened. This love branched into my approach as an Astrocartographer, which is the process of laying your natal chart across a map of the Earth and assessing how your astrology will interplay with that location. Over the years, I’ve supported hundreds of clients in their long-term and short-term travels, helping them collaborate with the land and move in a way that is non-extractive nor exploitative.
These days my cartographical seeds have grown into a deep love for Counter Cartography and commitment to centering untold biographies on American soil. Counter cartography is a method of cartography that challenges dominant power structures by focusing on often overlooked relationships with land and neighbor. Mapmaking and wayfinding are foundational byproducts of humanity – there was never a time where we didn’t need to know how to map the world around us. Yet, in the past five hundred years Cartography has become a heavy tool of colonialism and capitalism, charting the quickest route to resources. When I’m rummaging through Archival Map collections, it’s helpful to have a bit of detachment as I’m (more often than not), encountering the preserved documents of greedy racists that saw people as chattel. I understand that what’s been preserved is only a fraction of the field and this is why Counter Cartographers are so essential, we rework, revise, reshape, and retell, stories that were uprooted and made a spectacle.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My present work is founded on the intention to shift the visual grammar of Black America via cartography and increasing map literacy. It’s amazing how something that’s often overlooked and taken for granted plays such a large role in one’s worldview. Maps impact our ability to perceive the future because they either contribute to our connection or amplify isolation. If more people in general were curious about the land beneath our feet: its stories and the things its seen, there would be an increased desire in earth-based solutions.
In today’s society our children were raised with GPS (global positioning systems) in their phones, on search engines, or in their parent’s cars. This contributes to a common sense of “lostness” and being “directionless” internally because they have been socially conditioned to check with an external force about how to arrive to a destination that’s on the other side of town. They don’t know (or care) about the grid system that made their city in order to help folks find their way by relying on reason. It’s not their fault, but it’s where we are. We thought map literacy was a dated function and not an essential part of internal and external confidence.
I see my cartographical collections being staples in grade school classrooms, universities, text books, lecture halls, home galleries, museums etc. I even see myself generating maps for newly weds so that they can see the joining of their ancestry in one place. I see the world of my work as a cartographer living long after I’m gone and being a tool that upcoming generations lean on when they need to remember where they are and where they’ve been.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
That other people can mentor you in the fulfillment of your purpose.
I’ll keep it brief but essentially: there will be folks that enter your life (some seasons are longer than others), who will help you with soft skills (character development) or hard skills (craft development), but ultimately they will never have the vision that you have. And that’s a gift! There is a need in the world that your medicine, your art, your perspective, is a perfect match for. Never be afraid to say “something’s off”, and to adjust.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sakisavavi.earth
- Instagram: sakisavavi
- Twitter: sakisavavi
- Other: TikTok: @SelestialSaki
