about this project
the infinite scroll: an open journal project is an experiment, made beginning with stay at home orders in the spring of 2020. over the years leading into the pandemics — and through endeavors including counseling, mental illness, divorce, hospice, trauma, triumph, love, a dark night of the soul, and a holistic (re)awakening — i learned new meanings for life and for death. as working and living in distance further gave time new gravity, and relationships new dynamics, i’ve needed to create new orbits to keep balanced in spirit, healthy in body, and sane in mind (with varying degrees of success and failure).
so, most of my days are dedicated to community through the work i’m fortunate to have and to adore, and most of my nights are dedicated to this project, which has become my lifeline to process bewilderment / rage / grief / depression / anxiety / love / beauty / wonder / hope / faith in a humanity that honors all beings / etc. — and to hold gratitude, practice grace, and thus protect self. it is iterative and always in progress, re: the ‘infinite scroll’ idea, and it is the most personal project i’ve ever shared.
the creative precursor was a present for my beloved, which is why i’ve considered this whole journaling practice like a love letter, meditation, adventure, (re)generation, and ode to those who’ve always shared so much with me. and also, the more i excavate and the more i make, the more i (re)discover personal storytelling and patient self/awareness as individual activism, collective medicine, and peaceful (r)evolution.
womxn’s stories, diaries, memoirs, and auto/biographies have always felt like friends and accomplices, compasses and buoys, fables and allegories by which to navigate the multiverse and our experiences within these particular bodies. certainly in similarity but maybe especially in difference (to our own), personal narratives spark and balm and galvanize our souls. to learn about the lives of others is to dissolve the boundaries between us, towards a greater knowing of the connections across us and of the happenings within us. to share our own is to make a kind of (re)generative offering. to engage with longform traditions, particularly in a shortform culture, is an intentional act of resistance and reclamation.
so, i offer this project to anyone else who is grappling with the polarities and the possibilities of now, whether in your own being or in our larger world(s), and with a prayer that you find nourishment here. in this astonishing era, through our rotations of delirium and renewal, i hope the infinite scroll brings resonance or catharsis or medicine or benefit to you or someone you cherish.
about this time capsule
the infinite scroll is a constellation of my personal journals — original illustration, poetry, song, creative nonfiction, and research — interwoven with collected social / scientific studies; collaged images and quoted passages; and selected (re)generative solutions from lifelong students, teachers, and peace workers. each scroll volume (i.e. each navigation link / page) reflects the moment it was made. so, the information, specifically the data and statistics, the thoughts and opinions, cited throughout will naturally become outdated. altogether, this should not be thought of as a current event or comprehensive catalogue, but rather as a series of reflections and time capsules:
winter 2019: precursor >>
spring 2020: a love letter on delirium & renewal >>
summer 2020: an appeal to the astounding >>
winter 2020 - summer 2022: the miraculous art of being >>
in process: imagining peace & other lucid dreams
ongoing: the free change library >>
i am making the next one now.
about this artist
julia munroe mandeville, she / her, b.1984. i exist for peace, love to learn, and spring of conviction that everyone deserves security, dignity, belonging, and meaningful choice. the grand/daughter of working womxn artists and artisans, i am a cultural worker — writer, maker, curator, organizer, and amplifier — whose award winning civic practice portfolio spans more than two decades, ranging from intimate narrative excavations to vast public engagements.
together with my collaborators, i’ve resourced thousands of artists by co/creating hundreds of platforms, from solo site specific commissions to twenty five thousand citizen cultural celebrations, and redistributing more than $10million into the hands of makers. my arts and advocacy writing has appeared in local, regional, and international publications, and i’ve moderated open dialogues from gallery talks to mayoral candidate forums.
recent press on my collaborative civic practice includes features in hyperallergic, kunm-npr new mexico, americans for the arts artsblog, the albuquerque journal, and albuquerque business first.
for these efforts, and among other recognitions, my peers selected me for the international creative writers cohort & creative publishing seminar at center for book arts (nyc), and named me new mexico’s outstanding young nonprofit professional of the year for the afp - ynpn national philanthropy day awards.
guardian to iris and beloved to james, i marvel at my family — ancestral, born, and chosen — and new mexico is my meaning of home. i live on tiwa lands also called albuquerque. if you want to learn a bit more about how i meet my callings, please see here.
key guides & project milestones
in spring 2020, concurrent to publishing a love letter on delirium & renewal, i start working weekly and one : one with alejandra warden, founder of essential oneness. through alejandra’s counsel and mentorship, i have begun to grow (back) into myself, and the infinite scroll project is one way i offer myself (back) out in service. additionally, the process of making illustrations for alejandra’s book, remembrance: a vision of the sacred feminine and the renewal of the earth, totally illuminates me. the steps to alejandra are reflected in my essay, a journey to the mirror bridge, part of the volume an appeal to the astounding.
in winter 2021, one of the essays from the infinite scroll project, notes on seeing meghan the magical change into light / aka / notes on living with a loved one dying (from a love letter on delirium & renewal, pages 18-25) makes quarter finalist for ruminate magazine’s vandermey creative nonfiction prize. a small accomplishment to some, but a major vote of encouragement for me to continue exchanging beyond my nearests and dearests.
in summer 2021, the center for book arts (nyc) accepts me to the creative writers cohort and creative publishing seminar, taught by mc hyland and coordinated by jenna hamed. designed for socially and politically engaged authors, this summer intensive supports 20 writers from around the globe, providing 27 hours of instruction, featuring revolutionary guest speakers, and requiring weekly independent studio time. i applied to refine these longform digital scrolls into shorterform and possibly printable, but still whole, texts. i learned transformational techniques and perspectives, and synthesized the infinite scroll project into the free change library, pamphlet 0: mirror bridge and pamphlet 1: dream of a future.
i am grateful for the infinite blessings in my life, especially for my mothers, aunties, and sisters — ancestral, born, and chosen. and, adelaide mandeville, nisha chojar, cailyn kilcup, and dafina mcmillan are my most loving reflections and luminary compasses, beacons of the divine (feminine and two spirit) incarnate, lights of becoming whole and healthful and highest selves — each, together, and in service. turner mandeville is as loving and luminous, and the very first reason i trust that this bright is of the masculine too.
i appreciate every opportunity and all nurturance.
wellspring & dedication: meghan ferguson mráz
this project is offered in honor of meghan ferguson mráz, my best friend and chosen sister, who perfects the miraculous art of being and dies in march 2019 at thirty four. she continues to teach me my most profound lessons, and she remains, as charlie parker names dizzie gillespie, the other half of my heartbeat. i lose my creative partner in person with her passing, but she never leaves me in spirit.
recently another sisterfriend dafina asks me, how did you start making this scroll project, and start making time for it? and the answer is meghan. in 2012, when meghan moves to albuquerque and invites me to be her friend and thus changes everything, we immediately begin prioritizing space with and for each other in our day to days. when we embrace creative collaboration, we hold multiple songwriting and practice sessions each week for years with our trio, including the musical virtuoso who will be her great love and husband, casey, and we cooperate on weekly, monthly, and major annual arts organizing endeavors and events with our beloved peers. when she becomes sick with triple negative metastatic breast cancer, we re/arrange my work, volunteer commitments, and community engagements so i can go to her oncology and treatment sessions with her. when she leaves her job to focus on healing, i step back from many of my (mostly board) obligations and into spending at least two afternoons and evenings with her each week. when she learns she is going to cross over to the other side, she asks me to move in with her for hospice, and her family makes me a bedroom, and i take an indefinite leave from work, and her husband and i become her fulltime primary co-caretakers. the most common words she speaks during this period are, slow down. when she dies after six weeks, i do not give the emptiness / spaciousness of my own life and time back.
at first, the time is for mourning. then when i eventually understand how to hold the grief and so how to think even one single clear thought again, the time becomes for inquiring. then when the pandemics hit and new mexico implements stay at home orders, the time emerges for making. this is when the scroll starts pouring out. now that i know how indispensable it is for me to understand myself and the world and the possibilities of our shared experience, i will always build room for this artistic process. expression is like air, and i hope and work for a reality where everyone has the space to heal, imagine, dream, and create.
meghan radiates with knowledge that joy, discovery, and awe are the great wonders of existence, and the most wondrous balms to our agony. her whole spirit is aligned to it, for her and with / for others. i aim in every breath to embody her clarity of purpose, courage of heart, and delight of the magical multiverse.
if you wish to read more about our adventures, please see the volume, a love letter on delirium & renewal, which contains the essay notes on seeing meghan the magical change into light / aka / notes on living with a loved one dying.
intellectual property & creative commons
a selection of social / scientific studies, quoted passages, and collaged images are attributed throughout and belong to their original authors.
otherwise, this entire site and all its original contents are licensed under creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 4.0 international, attribution julia munroe mandeville.
