S02E03: Taylor Shaw — Shaping Narrative Through Animation

A number of years ago, Taylor K. Shaw was looking to staff her project with black animators, people who looked like the characters that she was creating, but the task proved to be more difficult than she anticipated. Eventually, she did find one black female animator, but the search led her to think that there had to be a better way to find these creative individuals, and to create a space for black women to collaborate, inspire each other, and raise each other up. What started as the Black Girl Animators Collective led to Black Women Animate, a mission-driven animation studio that is changing the landscape and pushing boundaries in the animation industry.

We recently caught up with Taylor to discuss the catalyst of how BWA came to be, the accomplishments and challenges of the studio’s first four years, and what’s next for both the studio and Taylor.

Table of Content

00:00 - Welcome

00:16 - Introduction

01:18 - Born to express

03:32 - Power to control narrative

09:02 - Building an animation community

14:38 - JLove — Creative accomplice

19:58 - The world is waking up

24:01 - Family encouragement

27:55 - Pursuing purpose

32:12 - Pandemic driven shift

36:21 - Fueling one's creativity

41:10 - Closing