Built to Hold
A story about collective power, principled pace, and the practice of care with Emma Osore
Most people talk about values.
Emma Osore builds systems that live them.
She’s not loud about it.
She doesn’t need to be.
For the last decade, she’s been one of the co-creators of BlackSpace — a collective of Black designers, architects, planners, and artists imagining new ways to shape Black futures.
She’s helped shape its principles.
Protect its pace.
And evolve its structure — without losing its soul.
Now, she’s holding a new chapter.
Not because she asked for it.
Because the work was ready and she’d grown steady enough to carry it.
This is a story about honoring the integrity of what you’ve built.
Even when the form changes.
Even when it’s your turn to hold more.
Press play to hear the full Field Note👇
Thank you for being here.
If this story stirred something in you, I hope you take a moment to ask:
What values are you living quietly — without needing to name them?
That’s the kind of leadership Emma reminds me to notice.
Not the loud kind.
The kind that holds.
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💬 And if it resonated, pass it on. That’s how we walk each other home.
With care,
Lindsey
P.S Check out here to learn more about Emma and BlackSpace!
Never underestimate the power of space and the power of place. Blueprints imprinted with altruistic values and intentions construct the foundations for temples and forums the world needs more than ever. Manifestos and musings alike shape and shift our world. Steadiness comes from a place of faith and with the firm holding of principles. And when you are the only one stewarding, know that in the loneliness sometimes comes our greatest ideas...because from the quiet emerges our quest.
We must create not only the conditions, but also the sensations that allow for gathering, ideating, coalescing and ultimately, HEALING. To unmake harm, we must first find our own haunting pulse, and listen for what it skips, where it hesitates, and what it hungers for in the end. I call that COMMUNITAS. That intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. It arises when people experience liminality together (being in transition or outside normal social structures) and feel a powerful sense of unstructured community, free from hierarchy or societal roles.
Thank you EMMA for showcasing to us what COMMUNITAS looks like and sounds like and feels like. I write this from a place of "summer shutdown" grateful for the intentional signing off that allows me to dance defiantly against prescribed productivity.
And thank you Lindsey for the nourishing threading of this Field Notes from the Work and the Wild.
building SYSTEMS that live Values. WHAT?? that's what we need across our globe. Emma, thank you for living into unmaking harm in real time, in real space, in community. your light draws me in as a Sun -- i'm delighted to be in your orbit. you're in transformation and cheering you on. and i totally aspire to taking all of December off in the future. the future is truly Female.
PS -- if you wanna consult on the side about Shared Leadership, there's a whole world of leaders struggling to figure that out. you have untapped Wealth having lived that system.