ITS-IN-SCOPE



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Marvin James


Review: Study Groups → Stewardship →

Fellowship Cohort 01    Guide              2020-21    
Residency  Cohort 01    Resident, Guide    2021-23
Fellowship Cohort 02    Guide              2023-24
Residency  Cohort 02    Resident, Guide    2023-24

Marvin James is a multidisciplinary artist, community educator, and ecosystem strategist born and raised in Pomona, CA by way of ancestral migrations from Coahoma County, MS to West Side Chicago as well as Shreveport, LA to South Central Los Angeles. He serves as the founding archive caretaker for ITS-IN-SCOPE, an experimental collective learning and contemporary archiving initiative on a mission to remember intuition and restore indigeneity through pedagogy, placemaking, and propaganda. Marvin also functions as a strategy partner for Care of The Land, a community development cooperative building care-based and self-determined ecosystems and models for land stewardship, social housing, and food cultivation. With a decade of experience as a consultant developing businesses and brands such as The Springhill Company, Roblox, Smashbox Studios, and more, the former Loyola Marymount University adjunct professor, is dedicated to employing their capacity to improve the material conditions of divested communities across the Diaspora.




Material Artifacts
Browse Catalog →


Physical objects designed to retain the findings from contemporary studies and inform continued conversation.

Octavia Knows! Print
Marvin James
[Available]
Artworks
2025
Octavia Knows! What To Do If Your Air Is Poison Prepbooklet
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Available]
Books
2025
Burning Breeze Tee
Marvin James
[Available]
Clothing
2024
ABC Thesis Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2024
Abundance Builders Cooperate Crest Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2024
Remember Intuition Sunprint
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2024
ABC Crest Sunprint
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2024
Diaspora Pedagogy
Sunprint
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2024
Post-Scarcity Work Jacket (Dune)
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Archive]
Clothing
2024
ABC Thesis Work Pants (Dune)
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Archive]
Clothing
2024
The Ends Print
Marvin James
[Available]
Prints
2023
I.E. To The World Print
Marvin James
[Available]
Prints
2023
I.E. To The World Tee
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Available]
Clothing
2023
The Sun Seeker Coloring Poetry Book
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Available]
Books
2023
Movement Studies, Vol.1 Textbooklet
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Available]
Books
2023
Repatriation NOW! Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2023
Remember To Breathe Diptych Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2023
Black Nepotism Tee
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Archive]
Clothing
2022
Technology Studies, Vol.1 Textbooklet
ITS-IN-SCOPE
[Available]
Books
2021
Black Gaze Triptych Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2021
Spirtual Experience Print
Marvin James
[Archive]
Artworks
2021


Research Notes    

Review Journal →

A collection of subjective research that provides context for contemporary studies — this mix of ancestral and intuitive documentation is curated communally in support of figuring it out together.

We Are Not Strangers Here by Ravi Howard
[Research Citation]
→ Nature
→ Abundance
Archipelago Manifesto
[Research Citation]
→ Movement
→ Space
→ Nature
Presence Prompt: Telepathic Rhythms
[Original Research]
→ Movement
Let’s get it going
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Movement
David Adjaye and Rick Lowe, moderated by Thelma Golden c/o Gagosian
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Ya'll need to wrap it up!
by Marvin James
[Original Research
→ Technology
→ Abundance
Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local by Taiye Selasi c/o TED
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Movement
Bye-Bye Babar by Taiye Selasi
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Resting on and for the Earth w/ Tricia Hersey by Brontë Velez c/o Atmos
[Research Citation]
→ Time
→ Nature
Negro Women To Be Put To Work c/o The Greenville News (1918)
[Research Citation]
→ Time
→ Abundance
Trumpeterring to Mars
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Technology
→ Abundance
Seeing Black Futures by Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew c/o The New York Times
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
→ Time
→ Technology
How Mining the Museum Changed the Art World by Kerr Houston c/o BmoreArt
[Research Citation]
→ Time
→ Abundance
Mondragon through a Critical Lens by Jill Bamburg c/o Fifty by Fifty Employee Ownership News
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Ep 8:1 Worker Cooperatives — Widening Spheres of Democracy c/o Upstream
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
The Black Sanitation Workers Who Are Saying, ‘I Am a Man’ by Daytrian Wilken (2020) c/o New York Times
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Kwame Ture - Organisation vs Mobilisation
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
'I've Been to the Mountain Top' Address by Martin Luther King Jr (1968)
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Malcolm X's Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964) c/o Black Past
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
CityLab University: Shared-Equity Homeownership by Benjamin Schneider c/o Bloomberg CityLab
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
Rosedale: The Way It Is (1976) c/o Bill Moyers Journal
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
The Thrill of Sugar Hill by Hadley Mears c/o CURBED
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
Kicked Off the Land by Lizzie Presser c/o The New Yorker
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
The Surveillance of Blackness: From the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to Contemporary Surveillance Technologies w/ Simone Browne by Claudia Garcia Rojas c/o Truthout
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
→ Technology
KODWO ESHUN – NARRATIVES OF A NEAR FUTURE c/o HEAD GENEVE
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
→ Time
Greg Thomas: The Complete Fanon c/o Dar al Janub
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
The Devastation of Black Wall Street by Kimberly Fain c/o JSTOR
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
The Fancy Neighborhood of the Future Is an Earth-Friendly ‘Intentional Community’ by Gisela Williams c/o Bloomberg
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Michaele Pride-Wells: Practice what you preach (October 11, 1995) c/o SCI-ARC
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Reimagining Black Space
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Space
→ Abundance
New Africa, Mississippi
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Abundance
Ghana Passport Control
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Abundance
White Gaze / Black Guides
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Abundance
→ Technology
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE: IN PRAISE OF ROOMMATES The Precious Quality of Solitary Togetherness by Clio Chang c/o SSENSE
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
Safiya Noble on Challenging the Algorithms of Oppression c/o PDF 2016
[Research Citation]
→ Technology
→ Abundance
Christian Benimana | The next generation of African architects and designers c/o TED
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Lecture Series: Oana Stănescu c/o Princeton School of Architecture
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Francis Kéré: African architecture should stop copying the West c/o Design Indaba
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Abundance
Family: Oana Stanescu c/o Arper
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Podcast #189: Theaster Gates c/o New York Public Library
[Research Citation]
→ Space
→ Movement
Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao on Africa & China c/o ODANA Network
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Sorrow Tears & Blood c/o Fela Kuti
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Arthur Jafa c/o Scholl Lecture Series
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Rethinking Public Space by Sarah Wesseler c/o Arch League
[Research Citation]
→ Space
More details emerge for the new Center for Community and Entrepreneurship in Flushing, Queens c/o The Architects Newspaper
[Research Citation]
→ Space
Interview: Architect Oana Stănescu by Pierre Alexandre de Looz c/o PIN-UP Magazine
[Research Citation]
→ Space
The First Moral Panic: London, 1744 by Matthew Wills c/o JSTOR
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
KRS-One Lecture c/o Virginia State University
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Sembène: The Making of African Cinema c/o Manthia Diawara & Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
The Long Goodbye c/o Riz Ahmed
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Gensler Experience Framework
[Research Citation]
→ Space
The Community Builder: In Conversation with Theaster Gates c/o The Aspen Institute
[Research Citation]
→ Space
40 Acres In Heaven
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Space
Free Your Mind
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Time
→ Abundance
→ Love
Social Distancing
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Space
Donald Glover Can’t Save You By Tad Friend c/o The New Yorker
[Research Citation]
→ Abundance
Yuval Noah Harari on what the year 2050 has in store for humankind c/o The Wired
[Research Citation]
→ Technology
Untitled (12/11/2018)
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Love
Stop Watching
by Marvin James
[Original Research]
→ Space
Theaster Gates: How to revive a neighborhood: with imagination, beauty and art c/o TED
[Research Citation]
→ Space




Audio Records


Ease Into The Day


16 tracks, 54 minutes, featuring Mos Def, Solange, Iman Omari and Moruf. Curated by Mieko Jones. Play this in the background to accompany your morning/evening wind down routine. 


You Been Had Time


14 tracks, 56 minutes, featuring Mach-Hommy, Jayda G, Navy Blue, and Minnie Riperton. Curated by Marvin James. Play this in the foreground to remind yourself that your time is and always has been divine.