The Abolitionist Atlas and Counter-Mapping as a Tool for Movement Building
Teach-in with Bria Miller
In this workshop, we will utilize The Abolitionist Atlas to explore counter-mapping as a tool for movement building. We will discuss how communities have historically developed counter-mapping practices in response to oppression and participants will be guided through methods for creating their own maps rooted in local organizing landscapes and histories while responding to broader revolutionary struggles.
About The Abolitionist Atlas
The purpose of The Abolitionist Atlas is to explore where and how self-determination is spatialized in our everyday lives. This project centers abolitionist, New Afrikan socio-spatial practices emanating out of the Black South. Over the past year, Bria has traveled throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, collaborating with community practitioners to map the organizations, institutions, infrastructures, and campaigns shaping abolitionist struggles across the region. The Atlas documents these movement landscapes through city-based profiles, maps, illustrations, and listings, while inviting readers to connect with, learn from, and contribute to the work represented within them
About the Facilitator
Bria Miller is an urban designer, printmaker and organizer from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her practice explores how communities map, represent, and transform the built environment in ways that build self-determination and cooperative futures. Through her New Afrikan counter-mapping practice, she publishes the Abolitionist Atlas and other print media as tools for movement building.