SHOW DESCRIPTION

In this live episode recorded at the Mississippi Museum of Art during Third Space JXN's Soulfood Sunday event, Paul Wolf sits down with Aisha Carson, founder and lead curator of Third Space JXN, a monthly community experience series built around the belief that social infrastructure matters just as much as physical infrastructure. Aisha shares the origin of Third Space JXN, what it means to build intentional community in Jackson, and why she believes narrative change is the foundation of any real civic progress.

TRANSCRIPT

Note: Soul Sessions is produced as a podcast first and designed to be listened to. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes the emotion and inflection meant to be conveyed by human voice. Our transcripts are created using AI and human transcribers, but may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

How Third Space JXN Got Started in Jackson, Mississippi

PAUL: Someone in Jackson looked around and noticed something missing. It wasn't a restaurant, it wasn't a venue, not another happy hour either — something harder to name. A place between the grind of work and the quiet of home where people could actually be with each other. Put your phones down, meet somebody new, connect over culture instead of cocktails. And she didn't wait for someone else to build it. She built it herself right here in Jackson.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places, and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today's show, we recorded live on location at the Mississippi Museum of Art during Third Space JXN's Soulfood Sunday event earlier this April — my first time in front of a live audience. And we found out what it actually takes to build intentional community in a city that deserves to see itself celebrated.

Aisha Carson is our guest. Her belief is rooted simply in this: that narrative change is where all other change begins, and that when people start experiencing their city differently, they start talking about it differently too. Here's my conversation with Aisha.

PAUL: Thank you for being here. I'm glad — you know, we had lunch at the Mayflower Cafe a few weeks back, and when Aisha asked me to do this, we talked about who could be the guest for today, who would be most impactful. And when I suggested to Aisha that she would be my guest, she said, "I don't know. I don't know." So we had some other folks in mind, but I kept coming back to the idea that it should be you. Because I believe people who kind of float under the radar and who don't want the spotlight — you still have to have the spotlight. You still need to let people know about the work you're doing. And I think it'll hopefully, after our conversation today, make folks appreciate Third Space even more. So I'm going to start at the very beginning. Third Space JXN — where did the idea come from, and what was the moment you decided that a city like Jackson specifically needed Third Space JXN?

AISHA: Yeah, that's a really great question that I've been asked a lot lately. I've been here for a while. I came here for grad school about almost 15 years ago now, which is kind of crazy. And there's always a lot of talk about the brain drain, which is totally fair, but not a lot of storytelling around the people who made the decision to stay — specifically millennials who made the decision to stay in Mississippi and really carve out their own space. But I always felt like, if we could really connect the dots, the different things happening in the city, the different third spaces that are popping up that add to your quality of life — that have added to my quality of life as I've grown here in the city — it was really sort of like my love letter to Jackson. Really trying to shift the narrative around what the actual experience of people like me are in this city.

The things that are missing, but also the things that are already there — the third spaces that people constantly come back to, and the community that really kept me here when it often seems easier to leave and carve out your path somewhere else. And I kind of wanted to pay homage to those creative spaces that nurtured me, the third spaces that nurtured me, that gave me a sense of fulfillment while I grew here in Jackson — which is sort of different from the common narrative about people who make the decision to stay.

PAUL: You talked about the people who made you want to stay here. Who is that?

AISHA: So many different people. A few of them are in the room. I think when I first came to Jackson, that space for me was Synergy Nights. Is Miranda here? Yes, there she is. If anybody has ever been to Synergy Nights — it's been around for a while. I remember going when I first came to Jackson when it was in the grocery store out on Old Canton Road. And I was doing spoken word poetry at the time, which I haven't done in a really long time. It was a space where you could come — that's actually where I met Kimara. It was a space where you could come and be creative, a platform for you to practice your creativity. And that was a huge part of the community that I grew. A lot of people that I met, I still work with and still follow their work and all of the different things that they're doing now.

But also, I think it's something to be said for Miranda creating a space where young creatives can come and build community but also practice the thing that they're good at or want to get better at. And I'm a spokesperson for an organization now, so that experience isn't lost on me — just the ability to get up in front of people and talk and write and all of the things that you have to do when you're doing performance poetry. So Synergy Nights was probably the first third space I experienced in the city, and I just want to thank Miranda for that.

It definitely comes with some work, some elbow grease for sure, but also some vulnerability in creating space for others. Places like that in Jackson are what make it more meaningful than, I feel like, any other place that I've been to or maybe could have moved to — just because that community that exists really does add to your quality of life and really does shape you, not only as a creative, but as a person. And there are many more places. Soleil — I'm probably there every day. Like my office. Many places where somebody, a creative, decided that they were going to do a thing and keep doing it, or create a space and maintain it. And those things really have an impact, not just on me, but on the city and people's ability to do something other than work at home, which I think is important for quality of life.

What "Third Space" Actually Means — and Why It Matters for Jackson

PAUL: I love it — perfect segue into this concept of third space. The name itself carries a lot of weight. For anybody who hasn't heard the term before and what it actually means, walk us through that and why the framing really matters to what you're building.

AISHA: Right, so it actually started as a research term — a way to quantify the different components in your life that create the ecosystem in which you exist. It was a researcher studying quality of life and how cities could better invest in quality of life, and one of the things that came up is third spaces — the ability to have a space outside of home and work where you can build community, meet people, have a consistent gathering point. And we do have that. We have plenty of third spaces in Jackson, but the actual intentionality of being able to gather and curate spaces for people to come and enjoy and engage with the city in a different way — I kind of added a layer onto that research term, really wanting to bring my peers together, bring different folks in the city together to experience places that they may have been to a lot but in a different sort of way. And hopefully the goal is that they continue to come back to those spaces.

So Third Space JXN is about simulating that third space — that research term of having intentional spaces that you gather in outside of being at work and being at home. And it's really easy to be siloed. In doing Third Space, I saw so many faces that I've never seen in a very small city. We just never crossed paths. And I think that's a bit problematic. Living in a city like Jackson, I definitely want to make sure that there are cross points between our peer groups, because that's essentially how we grow. Or seeing a space that you've seen maybe forever, but you just didn't realize that that was a space for you or that that was a space where you could gather and have a good time.

PAUL: That's very true.

AISHA: To be honest, a part of Third Space is just traveling — especially in the Southeast. Maybe you go to Atlanta for a weekend or New Orleans or Dallas, and there's a lot of intentionality and a lot of options for us to engage. It's not just one thing to do on one weekend. It's a plethora of things to do, from art openings to coffee shop parties. And a part of creating Third Space was that this can exist here too. We're not any different in the people makeup, even though our city looks different. But those intentional opportunities for people to engage can exist in Jackson, and it also can be diverse — which is why Third Space is different every time. There's the diversity of things to do and also the diversity of what we want to do. A lot of times, part of this sort of narrative we always talk about is there's nothing to do in Jackson. Well, we really want to push back against that, but also encourage other people to put their creative thing out into the city — their event, whatever that creative thing is — and show that there are tons of people who want to engage differently in that way.

Building Something Explicitly for Jackson — and Why That Matters

PAUL: Let's look at Jackson as the context for this. We don't always see ourselves reflected back in Jackson in a positive light, at least not from the outside. So what does it mean to build something that is explicitly Jackson, that's rooted in a belief that this city is worth investing in socially and culturally?

AISHA: Yeah, I think that's a really great question. When I first created it and started talking to my friends about it, I didn't necessarily think the long-term goal was that it would have that sort of narrative change impact. But for me, it's been about putting something else out there for other people to enjoy as an experiential thing — so that they can not only start to talk about Jackson differently, but also start to experience it differently. Because perception is reality in a lot of ways, and being able to create narrative change where maybe if somebody comes to a Third Space event, they have a different narrative about the things there are to do in Jackson. And also about the people around them — because a lot of times it's like, I think I'm the only person who likes to do this thing, but really when you step outside and engage, there are a lot of other people who have the same interests as you.

And so hopefully Third Space gives people the opportunity to think, hmm, I've been to the museum, but I've never seen it like that. Or I've been to this space and I haven't engaged with it — I might come back again because I've never really seen the space that way. I think at the night at the museum event we had at Smith Robertson, that was the impact we had — just people not really being in that space and becoming more and more curious about it, which is the impact we hope to have.

PAUL: Yeah, we're not always the story that we see on the news, right? We're so much more than that.

AISHA: Right. And narrative change is the impetus of people believing that change is possible. It's just the belief that something can be different than what it is, or it's different than how people talk about it. And if people come out in the city enough and experience it enough and build enough community, I think that natural narrative change will happen if people start to talk about the city differently — and start to explain it differently when they're talking about it outside of just the negative narrative of how Jackson can be perceived.

What It Means to Design an Intentional Community Experience

PAUL: Every one of these events in the series is described as very intentional. So what does that mean in practice when you're actually planning a Third Space JXN experience?

AISHA: Right, so we try to think about making it easy for people to be able to connect. We don't just want it to be a party. We want it to be a space where people can come and very easily — whether it's a prompt that you receive or a raffle or a game that we're doing — have a low barrier for engagement with other people. Whenever we're designing an event or thinking about what partnerships will make sense for Third Space, it's always about what are those things that bring people together in a way where they're actually interacting and not doom scrolling on their phones, but have things to engage in and different topics to discuss. So it's never a time where people feel like, I don't know when to jump in, I don't know if I should introduce myself.

The environment is kind of built for people to be able to engage. That's the intention we want to bring — to make it different from just showing up at a regular party or a regular event — to really be mindful of how to build communication and interaction with other people. And the goal is always that somebody leaves the event having met somebody they didn't know before. You realize there are more people out there that are like you than you thought.

AISHA: Absolutely. In starting Third Space, there were so many faces that I started to see that I just didn't even know existed in the city. Of course, you don't know everyone, but just the amount of support we got initially was overwhelming in such a good way. But it also was a testament to the people in Jackson and their desire to lean into things that are different, or be curious about different creative things that people are putting out there. And it's not just Third Space. I've seen events across the city that are so well attended just based on the fact that somebody put something out into the universe that they felt like was on their heart — much like the inspiration of Synergy Nights. And the more people feel inspired to do that, the more third spaces we have, but also the more places that people actually see themselves reflected in the things that are happening in the city. Which I think was one of your original questions — actually being able to see yourself in your city. And a part of that is the things that you have to do, and are they reflective of the things that you actually want to do?

How Third Space JXN Builds Community Trust in Jackson One Gathering at a Time

PAUL: You've described Third Space as building community trust one gathering at a time, and trust is earned very slowly. So what have you learned about what people in Jackson actually need from a space like this?

AISHA: Yeah, I think in the simplest form, I think they need — or want — a space where they can meet other people. That's part of it. Sometimes we do have our social circles, but they can be a little siloed. So the ability to actually meet other people. But I think the other part of it is to have fun, to have things that you like to do that are diverse in nature, and that you can actually come and get fly — wear the clothes that you might normally wear when you go out of town — and also see your peers who are also getting fly as well. Something as simple as seeing yourself reflected in the attire that people have on. And we don't always have those spaces in Jackson for something that simple. So at our core, it's just about people having a fun way to engage and a place to come that's different every time, and it builds this anticipation.

But the trust piece is — we don't always announce where our events are going to be before people actually start buying tickets. And that speaks to the narrative change piece, right? Because sometimes if you already know what it is, you might have preconceived notions about where we're going. You might say, I've already been there. But we want people to trust us and trust the community that we're building enough to know it's going to be a unique experience every time. You don't necessarily have to anticipate the environment as much as you're anticipating that it's going to be very community-centered. You're going to walk away knowing somebody, and it's going to be a fun, unique experience every time.

PAUL: I love one of your recent events — you kind of turned a hotel restaurant on its head and people were like, whoa, I didn't think I could do this here. At Estelle.

AISHA: Yeah. And like I said, at the core of it, Third Space is a research term and all this research around quality of life. But the core of it is we really want to have places to have a good time. When you go to other places, that very simple part of being able to have a good time in a space and seeing yourself reflected back to you in the music and in your peers — that's so important to people really feeling like they belong in the city. And it's not an afterthought. We know there are some of our peers who've moved away because they didn't have anything to do. They didn't have anywhere to go. They felt like there was no place that was different other than the normal places that we go to, which are cool, but having the diversity and something to do — that was a very fun event, and it also speaks to the desire in the city for people to have those spaces and have the opportunity to show up, have fun, and really feel like you're in a place that values that experience.

I saw a young woman — a young Black woman — on Threads the other day saying, I've been in Mississippi for a while now. What do y'all do around here? And the amount of comments that were, "Third Space JXN, girl, you need to check out Third Space JXN."

PAUL: I'd say you're onto something.

AISHA: Yeah, it's really humbling when people say that. When we started, I thought it would take a while for people to really gravitate towards it. But word of mouth has been great, and it's very humbling — it makes me feel great that we're fulfilling our purpose. If somebody says they're struggling to make connections in the city and people recommend Third Space, that to me is us fulfilling our purpose of having that connection point for people so that they don't feel siloed, and they do feel like, okay, at least I know I have once a month where I can go to this thing and potentially meet somebody, be part of a community, or walk away with connections that are going to make my experience in this city meaningful.

The Personal Story Behind Third Space JXN — and Aisha Carson's Theory of Change

PAUL: All right, we've come to the part now where we're asking you to get a little vulnerable. We've been talking about this work that you do, but we want to know a little bit more about you, and what your own life in Jackson looks like, and how your personal story connects with what you're trying to build with Third Space.

AISHA: Well, when I moved here for grad school, my early professional career consisted of public policy work and advocacy work. And one of the things I learned very early on is that it's hard to create policy change — or any sort of change you can see — without narrative change first. And narrative change is the hearts and minds work. It's sometimes the hardest part of shifting a thing, whether that's policy or perception. Having people actually talk about something differently, or having people come forward and give their voice to an issue, is probably the most impactful way to change something.

Every role I've taken since that early part of my career, even my personal passions, has always been about — if we're trying to solve for something, how are we talking about it differently? And talking is one thing — talking points and messaging — but the other part of it is experiential. Not just building capacity around change-making when it comes to policy, but also thinking about how do we talk about our state? How do we talk about our city? Because those things do trickle into policy and impact in those institutional spaces that sometimes need adjustments in the cog wheels in order to create positive impact. And so a part of my own personal story is trying to see narrative change in the spaces that I feel should be more impactful — that could lead to positive change in the city.

So when people start to talk about Jackson differently, then maybe people start to move here more and actually make Jackson their residence. Maybe they start to frequent businesses in Jackson more. And just that simple reframe of how we talk about the city — and hopefully eventually the state — can create those seeds in people that think, okay, maybe Mississippi isn't so far from where we want it to be. Or maybe Jackson isn't so far from where we want it to be. But the impetus of that change starts with the belief in the possibility. And that's sort of what narrative change does. So a part of my personal belief is that if you can invest in your small way in changing the narrative about how you talk about where you live, or how you talk about our capital city, a lot of other changes can come from that. That's my own theory of change. And it's also why I invested in Third Space — because you can't just talk about it. People also have to experience it. It's kind of like experiential marketing. When people start to experience the city differently, they start to talk about it differently. And that means things for our ability — especially our peers — to continue to build spaces and create spaces that are for us specifically.

What's Next for Third Space JXN

PAUL: Now y'all see what happened when I asked Aisha about herself personally — she went right back into Third Space mode, didn't she? That is her passion. That is what she is so passionate about, and I can tell she's trying to build this city. So what's next for Third Space?

AISHA: We're hoping to continue to partner with people. I don't know if Dominic's in here. Is he? No, he might be outside. Here he is right here — everybody give Dominic a hand. Dominic is a senior at Jackson State, and this event actually really came from his idea. And so when you ask what's next for Third Space, I always hoped when I started this that it would be a platform for young creatives to express themselves and get experience curating events, and not feel like they have to go somewhere else in order to have that experience. So I'm hoping that there are more Dominics in the future. He's graduating in May from Jackson State University. But I'm hopeful that we continue to build meaningful partnerships with other people who want to create and make something in the city. I definitely don't want all the ideas to come from my head. I'm hoping to continue to build our bandwidth to have more and more experiences that speak to the different things that people have going on in the city.

Podcasting is one of the things that is near and dear to my heart. I think they're digital third spaces — spaces that people come back to. I have podcasts like The Read that I've been listening to for 10 years, and it definitely has a community around it. And I think the voices of my peers are extremely important, especially in the city and state and where we are right now. So to continue to give platform to them, to be able to do their art and to create spaces for other people to come in and curate — hopefully what's next for us is continuing to partner with more and more people to grow the diverse experiences of Third Space.

Closing: Why Aisha Carson's Work Matters for Jackson, Mississippi

PAUL: I think what strikes me the most is what you're doing — the simple core idea, and how much courage it takes to act on it and put it all together. Because it's a heavy lift. But Jackson has the people, we know that. Jackson has the culture. Somebody just has to create the room, and you did that. So thank you for doing that.

AISHA: Thank you. Thank you.

PAUL: That's Aisha Carson of Third Space JXN. You know, I asked Aisha to talk about herself a little bit personally, and she went right back to Third Space. And honestly, I think that tells you everything. That's not deflection. That is her story. The work and the person are the same thing. Jackson has the people. Jackson has the culture. Somebody just had to create the room, and Aisha did that. Third Space JXN is an experience series right here in Jackson. If today was your first introduction to it, then welcome — I hope it won't be your last. We'll have links in our show notes at visitjackson.com/soulsessions to help you learn even more.

This podcast is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Rickey Thigpen, and I'm our managing editor. There's always something great going on in Jackson, and we keep up with it at visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf, and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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