- About

Stella Iman is a scholar activist, visual artist, and anthropologist based in Brooklyn

As a scholar-activist, she is inspired to produce work that provokes thought concerning the decolonization of history, the present, and the future of the Africana Diaspora. Her training as a visual anthropologist has taught her that the present is an ever-evolving door to the past, which is why she values the importance of native documentation of Black communities at home and across the Diaspora.  

As a visual artist, she is guided by anthropological methods as much as she is inspired by personal experience. Undoubtedly, each project is influenced by the upbringing of two, often competing, worldviews — her father, a Belizean immigrant, and her mother, daughter of two Black American doctoral professionals. 

Stella Iman’s most recent work is her Master of Arts Creative Thesis Project, completed at San Francisco State University. Her Master of Arts in Visual Anthropology was earned through the completion of a short ethnographic film titled, Naturally Free, and user-guide produced to make aware the historical, cultural symbolism, individual motivations, benefits and challenges of wearing hair in its natural state, as expressed by a few Black women in San Francisco Bay Area. Naturally Free is currently on the film festival circuit.

As a UX researcher, she drives product development and new market and business strategy opportunities through the lenses of inclusivity, innovation, and empowerment. She specializes in ethnographic, concept, and usability testing and other user-centric methods of research. Her objective is to always represent the users’ voice from exploration to development.

Overall, she seeks to produce artful work that educates, heals, humanizes, and empowers BIPOC women, activists, youth, and most other underserved yet powerful groups.