Everything And More: On the Makings of Bunny McKensie Mack
An interview for Sixty Inches From Center
May 2022
”When the ground is softening and shifting beneath you, where do you turn? Do you put pen to paper? Or turn to a short stack of worn out books and marked pages that provide guiding words? Do you immerse yourself in the humbling beauty of nature? Or do you turn inward and seek stillness? Do you grab a megaphone and take to the streets, whatever your literal or metaphorical streets might be? Or do you turn to the people you love and the best advice givers of your confidante circle?
Personally, over the past two years, I’ve spent time taking stock of the anchors and lighthouses that have been essential to keeping my undoing at bay. Although it’s always changing, my arsenal includes all of the above and more, with my ‘and more’ including people like “Bunny” McKensie Mack, the trilingual facilitator, educator, activist, researcher, and artist who founded the change management firm MMG. For those who know McKensie, you know exactly why.
I first met McKensie in 2018 when we at Sixty were organizing the Chicago Archives + Artists Festival. They were at the helm of Art + Feminism, an organization committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts using Wikipedia. Although that weekend was a whirlwind for me, I made a point to sit in on their workshop titled Wait, What’s a Wikipedia?: An Edit-a-thon Training for Chicago Culture. It was everything I thought it would be…and more. I left with an even clearer understanding of how much both archiving and record-keeping are entangled in conversations about power dynamics, self-determination, community care, and a collaborative approach to history evolution and maintenance.
After that, I continued to find myself in McKensie’s presence, whether that was from a digital distance through social media or through unexpected run-ins at one of the less cringe-worthy diversity, equity, and inclusion day-of-learning events for the cultural nonprofit and philanthropy sectors. Or, while I was sitting through their talk for the Association of College and Research Libraries where, as part of the lecture, they included a slide that read in bright orange font, “Audre Lorde was a Black lesbian librarian from Harlem.”
Watching McKensie speak truth to power with such style, tenderness, grace, honesty, and humor — with absolutely no apologies — is a glorious experience. It’s everything. When I’ve crossed their path, I’ve been challenged and changed. I’ve been affirmed within sectors, a country, and a world that has often felt antagonistic towards me and the people I love.
My words are insufficient when trying to describe all that McKensie is and has been in the time I’ve known them. Channeling the lyrics of Chicago’s own Curtis Mayfield, “they’re close but not quite.” When I find it hard to fully describe and want to deepen my appreciation of someone who’s made such a profound and unexpected impact on my thinking, I am usually compelled to go straight to the source. Although no interview could truly hold all that they are, at the other side of the following conversation you will find yourself with the gift of being better acquainted with the makings of the one and only Bunny McKensie Mack.”
Read the full interview here…
Photo Credits:
[1] McKensie Mack sits on a small wooden bridge in the Garden of the Phoenix or the Osaka Garden in Jackson Park, Chicago. They are wearing a bright read snakeskin ensemble with white thick-soled shoes. They have their hands resting on one leg, looking directly into the camera. Photo by Ireashia M. Bennett.
[2] McKensie Mack is seen kneeled down in front of a mirror, looking at their reflection among some sidewalk and greenery in the Garden of the Phoenix or the Osaka Garden in Jackson Park, Chicago. You can see parts of the bright read snakeskin ensemble they’re wearing and interwoven vines behind them. They have their hands crossed in front of them. Photo by Ireashia M. Bennett.
[3] A portrait of McKensie Mack standing under a blue sky and trees in the Garden of the Phoenix or the Osaka Garden in Jackson Park, Chicago. They are sunbathed, looking into the camera. You can see the top of the red snakeskin outfit they’re wearing. Photo by Ireashia M. Bennett.