Whose History
In collaboration with Clara Saez. I was asked to help run a pilot project for the 1st year Graphic students that looks at design history and encourages them to rewrite it from their own diverse perspectives.The aim was to enable the students to critically assess the dominant White European narrative of Graphic Design and be able to argue for a more inclusive vision of the subject that represents their own interests and values more clearly.
This involved conducting surveys, focus groups and workshops in order to gain insight into the views of the students - whether there was need for such a project. The response received was one of solidarity and support on a subject they felt was lacking so far.
This project also gave me the opportunity to run a workshop with the 1st years on where and how to find diverse references. They were analysing the conversation between Robin Kinross and Richard Hollis regarding his book “Graphic Design: A Concise History (World of Art)”. Within the conversation, we mapped out the geographical location of the designers that are referred to.
It appears, according to Richard Hollis, the ‘World of art’ fails to exist outside the realms of North America and Europe. Also, incapable to be achieved by more than one woman.
With my workshop, I wanted to fill in the white space on the wall and encourage the 1st years to explore the space around the designers mentioned by Richard Hollis. Looking at designers of various cultural, geographical, sexual, religious and linguistic backgrounds I wanted to expand the idea of a designer to include more than just graphics, but visual communicators.
