Audre Lorde

My name is Bailey Lois Johnson, and I am a graduating senior English major at Spelman College. This project centers on my archival research on Audre Lorde, with a particular focus on how her presence and artistic identity extend beyond traditional literary forms. While Lorde is most often studied through her essays and poetry, my experience in the archives encouraged me to think about her not only as a writer, but as a visual and self-curated subject.

The primary purpose of this project is to reimagine Lorde’s archive within a contemporary digital framework by translating her visual and textual presence into a Tumblr-style multimedia platform. Rather than treating the archive as a static collection of materials, this approach considers how Lorde’s identity, voice, and artistic philosophy might exist within the fluid, participatory, and aesthetic-driven environment of digital media. Tumblr, as a platform historically associated with personal expression, political discourse, and community formation, provides a compelling space to explore how Lorde’s work could be experienced in a more immediate and interactive way.

This multimedia component is not intended to simplify or aestheticize Lorde’s legacy, but instead to expand it. By curating scanned negatives alongside excerpts of her writing, imagined captions, and thematic visual groupings, I aim to create a speculative digital archive that reflects the complexity of her thought and the intentionality of her self-presentation. In doing so, I examine how Lorde’s practices of self-definition, visibility, and resistance might translate into contemporary forms of online identity construction.

Ultimately, this project uses Tumblr as both a creative and critical tool. It allows me to engage with key questions about Lorde’s creative process, sources of inspiration, and artistic philosophy, while also reflecting on the evolving nature of archives in the digital age.

Personal Reflection

This quote stayed with me in a way that felt almost uncomfortable at first, because of how direct it is. There’s no softening of the message and no attempt to make it easier to accept. Audre Lorde is naming something that feels intensely real: the pressure of being shaped by how others see you, and the consequences of not resisting that.

As I sat with it, I started to think about how often identity feels negotiated rather than self-determined. There are expectations that are spoken and unspoken about who to be, how to act, how to present yourself, especially as a woman, especially as a Black woman. And sometimes, without even realizing it, those expectations start to shape you. Sometimes they shape you while you fully realize. This quote interrupts that completely. It insists that self-definition is not optional, but it’s necessary for survival.

What I find most powerful is the language of being “crushed” and “eaten alive.” It makes the stakes clear. This isn’t about preference or self-expression in a casual sense; it’s about what happens when you lose control over your own narrative. That idea has made me more aware of how I move through the world, especially in spaces where it’s easy to become what is expected rather than what is true.

Audre Lorde in the same purple sweater, the same black coat

repeated, not by accident, but by choice. when something feels like you, you return to it. when it fits… your body, your mood, your sense of self, you don’t question it, you wear it again.

not for the camera, not for variation, just because it’s yours.

Personal Reflection

There was something instantly familiar about these images. Seeing her in the same outfit across different moments didn’t feel insignificant, but rather felt deeply human. It reminded me of the quiet attachment we form to certain pieces of clothing, the ones we reach for again and again because they make us feel like ourselves.

As women, I think there’s often an unspoken awareness around repetition. This idea that we’re not supposed to wear the same thing too often, that we should constantly be presenting something new. But these images resist that. Audre isn’t performing variety or change here; she’s consistent, grounded, and comfortable in what she’s chosen to wear.

The Scroll Before “the Scroll”

before the feed, there was this

a roll of negatives, unbroken, unfolding. Audre Lorde in the garden, then the kitchen, then somewhere in between.

no curation, no performance… just sequence. moments that don’t announce themselves as important, but accumulate anyway.

this is a different kind of scroll: not designed to be consumed, not arranged for an audience, but lived.

Personal Reflection

This roll of film felt the most familiar to me, even though it comes from a completely different time. Moving through the negatives reminded me of scrolling, how one moment leads into another without clear boundaries, how meaning builds through repetition rather than a single, defining image. But at the same time, it felt more honest than anything I’m used to seeing digitally.

Audre Lorde looks directly, no performance, no distance. the camera doesn’t capture her; she meets it.

this feels less like being seen and more like deciding how to be seen.

before front-facing cameras, before curated feeds there is this: a quiet insistence on presence.

a yellow sweater, moving through moments first in motion, then in mirror, then in stillness.

Personal Reflection