Category Archives: Intervention

Making it happen – The process of the final showcase

I really enjoyed the journey to create what I wanted to show for the final showcase, since it allowed me to explore with different mediums to execute my idea, an I experienced how the creative process is all about trusting intuition, asking for feedback and working hard to make it happen.

My first vision of what I want to showcase came from an idea I had of a possible intervention where I ask people to confront themselves against a mirror that had on top the silhouette of the average man, asking them if they could fit that frame. After the Dragon’s Den, I had a different idea of how to approach it, it’s all described in this previous blog post.

After deciding that I want to create an environment full of red flags on objects and reading about the anaglyph effect, Zuleika informed me that for the exposition I didn’t have enough space to make an entire living room as I had thought, so I had to reframe my idea. I decided then to create some posters still with the same effect, so I went to the Digital Lab and asked help to one of the technicians I already had work with to create the Flag the Gap logo. She then invited me to play around with Illustrator. It’s important to mention that I have not much experience with and that I had to learn A LOT. Also, she asked me to create some sketches of what I was envisioning so it felt ore guided my creative process.

So, here are some of the images of the process, from the beginning to the end. I’m going to print them with the Riso printer of the university and I’m so excited of the result!

First Sketches:

First try in Illustrator:

Progress with Illustrator

Final Result

Another aspect that was important for me was to develop my own logo for Carolina, la Latina, which started as the name of this blog, but now I’m thinking about using it as my own personal brand for my art projects and my creative side. Also, by prototyping and playing around with Illustrator I created my new brand, which is also a big step for me.

It took me 2 weeks to make this happen and I’m really so proud of myself and the evolution I saw on my art piece.

Intervention – Posture Workshop at Latin American House

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On October 24, I had the chance to conduct an intervention at Latin American House, where I volunteer as a Project Coordinator Assistant. The session was a posture and confidence icebreaker, discussed and planned with Elizabeth and inspired by the Ted Talk The Power of Posture.

These Community Thursdays or Jueves en comunidad feature activities or information sessions from various organizations. Coincidentally, another UAL student had also organized a session on mapping memories in London, so my icebreaker worked perfectly as a warm-up activity.

I introduced myself, briefly explained my MA research and the reason for discussing posture, and then had everyone stand up, move around, and reflect on their posture. People had a laugh as I asked them to do different movements and then to stay in the “confidence” posture for a couple minutes.

I feel that the exercise was a bit brief and could be expanded in the future. The feedback at the end was very positive: “It was great, really fun,” though I’m not sure how much they’ll apply it in their daily lives. I plan to follow up with participants this week to gather feedback on whether it made a lasting impact.

Maria Victoria, my supervisor, suggested it would be great to do this at the start of the Thursday activities since everyone was left feeling very happy. It’s a great activity, I’m just wondering how related to my research, really.

Some pictures of the activity:

Intervention with Neelabh – More than average

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The idea of creating an intervention together came naturally. I initially reached out to Neelabh because of his experience in fashion design, and he was also keen to explore the concept of identity through his project.

We started with an idea that we developed in this docs, booked the equipment at university, and decided to hold our intervention on Wednsday, October 16. Our plan was to set up in The Street, inviting people to participate.

Easy, right? Not at all!

October 16th of 2024:

When we arrived at uni, we realized it was too bright, making it impossible to photograph silhouettes as planned. Determined to find an alternative space, we searched throughout the building, only to discover it’s quite difficult without a reservation. We finally ended up at the photobooth near the photography studios, experimenting with the lighting we had. It worked somewhat but not as well as we hoped.

We learned we needed more focused lighting, so we booked a specific light from the Loan Store and decided to try again the following Monday, October 21. We printed posters and placed them around uni, hoping people would engage.

21st of October:

That day, we came better prepared, having also reserved a pod at the library. When we arrived, we noticed an open area next to the library that felt more inviting, so we set up there. The setup looked impressive with the frame and lighting working perfectly, but we encountered a new challenge: inviting people in was difficult, and many didn’t want to engage. Everyone was suddenly going late to tutorials. The poster also didn’t attract attention, as it blended into the overwhelming amount of other posters on every wall at CSM.

We managed to take pictures of friends and their friends, but still, others wouldn’t even glance our way. We ended up with 15 pictures, which we counted as a success, though it wasn’t as engaging as we had hoped.

We packed up and decided to try again this week, but I think we need to reframe why we’re asking for people’s silhouettes and consider what we’re offering in return. Those who did engage enjoyed the experience, but the intervention didn’t create a strong impact.

The photos might be useful for our exhibitions, though I’m not yet sure how to integrate them.

I’m certain that if I’d tried this without Neelabh, it wouldn’t have been as successful, as his experience with the equipment was invaluable while I felt a bit lost. I really appreciate him sharing his expertise and teaching me.

Future interventions

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There are two interventions coming in the next two weeks:

The unaverage average with Neelabh

This collaboration came through because I reached out to Neelabh to ask him his opinion on my project, since he owns a fashion studio and he makes clothes for his clients, and so, he has experience dealing with standardised clothes. I explained to him were my ideas have came through and told him I had a vision of obtaining peoples silloutes to then play with that information and create some sort of visualisation of the unaverage average. His project is related to AI and the creation of identity and he was very ken on exploring an intervention that could help us both. In that sense, our intervention is going to be held tomorrow ( Wednesday) at The Street and we are going to be for 4 hours taking pictures of people who willingly want to be part of our intervention.

Posture Workshop at Latin American House

Exploring my ideas with my tutor, Elizabeth, we came upon some important realisations during the tutorial of the 09 of October.

We started discussing about how the problem about stadarization and the use of the average borns also from the need of an industrial production in a globalised world, and how instead making clothes that fit people, it becomes a matter of a judgemental perception of bodies. The measurements come imposed into an entire population.

Brainstorming in ideas of how to create an intervention that could help me fill gaps in my research in these few weeks left, I mentioned that in my search for stakeholders and communities I can enhance a conversation, and also for personal reasons, I started volunteering into an organisation called Latin American House, which is a hub for the lit American community in London, where they make several activities designed for these community and their needs. We both found this organisation as a perfect opportunity to make an intervention, especially since Ive got a bit of liberty to propose activities and workshop. As we were talking she mentioned the possibility of joining a repair cafe and helping people modify cloths so they can fit them perfectly to their bodies, bringing the agency back to the people. Analysing that possibility, I said to her that I didn’t want it to become only about the clothes, I wanted to make it about the perception of the bodies and the average. She was quite confrontational and asked me, so, how do you perceive your own body and why? This lead to a conversation bout how coming to London confronted me to being very different to everyone else and how I sometimes felt short. So, Elizabeth suggested making a workshop or activity were we could work with the people that go to the LAH , which are normally migrants, on how to walk with confidence and perceive the space with confidence.

And so, that’s my next intervention that is going to be the next Thursday at 3:oopm when a group of people go to LAH to do any activity that is being suggested by the organization. It’s during a space called Thursdays in community.

I’ve looked for help with Beatriz, a student of MACCC, since she has a background on theatre.

After the Artivism Festival ~ reflections on collaboration

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Skaped’s Artivism Festival took place yesterday at St. Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green, and I am truly impressed by how deeply it moved me.

I initially applied to be part of the Steering Group as a way to meet new people, network with other organizations that are interesting in community projects, and improve my project. My responsibilities included overseeing the creative workshops and assisting with some logistical tasks. We arrived at the office at 9:00 AM, headed to St. Margaret’s House at 10:00 AM with all the materials ready to set up and finished at 10:00PM after the panel, performances and workshops!

The first creative workshop we organized was hosted by Nadina, a French artist who focuses on anti-racist art. Her workshop centered around creating anti-racist posters, and I had the opportunity to assist her while she guided the participants. I felt really comfortable in this role.

The second workshop was one that I co-facilitated with Asma from the East End Women’s Museum and Khaos. Reflecting on my experience from Unit 2, I noticed that collaboration brought up some complex feelings for me. Since I was part of the Skaped team, I had to align with the Creative Director’s vision, which meant I didn’t have complete creative freedom. While collaborating with Khaos and Asma, I was the one who proposed the topic and developed the collage ideas, and I felt that their involvement was more an strategic decition to ensure inclusivity To be honest, this annoyed me a bit because at the begginning I wasnt’ sure about collaborating when I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do for the workshop.

During the workshop, more people showed up than we had anticipated, so we had to squeeze everyone in! It was a lovely success—participants discussed gender norms and used collage as a medium to express how these norms impact their lives. Interestingly, the group included just as many men as women, which struck me because my projects have typically focused on women. This made me realize that the project could be even broader in scope.

Participants expressed how deeply these topics resonate with them, sharing feelings of anger but also recognizing the beauty in collective power and the sense of not being alone. This is something I want to emphasize in my own project—not just the weight of how difficult things can be, but also the joy in small moments. There was even a participant who cried during the workshop.

Facilitating this workshop taught me that I am capable of leading these kinds of projects on my own, but it also showed me the power of collaboration—how much can be gained from exchanging perspectives and embracing collective care.

Collaborating with Skaped, as with any organization, has its pros and cons. On the positive side, it provided a platform to reach a wider audience, introduced me to incredible people who are passionate about art and activism, and allowed me to have meaningful conversations with other organizations, such as members of the Vagina Museum. I even got to share ideas with the artist Yaa Yeboah Newton, she owns a beautiful project called Our Naked Bodies, which was incredibly inspiring. There was also a panel discussion with artivists that I found particularly enlightening. Additionally, Skaped covered all the workshop materials and even compensated me financially.

Building a network through work and projects is indeed crucial, and I’m slowly constructing a community of people who share my interests. I shared my project with my new friends, and they’re very interested in becoming user testers.

I left the festival feeling deeply inspired because it was the first time someone referred to me as an artist! This is something that had never happened before, and it made me feel like I am finally finding the spaces where I belong.

In the picture: My friends from Skape!

Intervention No.2

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For the second version of my intervention, I decided to incorporate all the suggestions and opportunities that where evidenced from the first one.

Instead of an activity ment to be done in their individual time, I made it collective with guided support.
Instead of focusing solely on the environment and material objects, I shifted the focus to lived experiences of the normalization of misogynistic gender norms.
I also added more guidance and closure to the experience.

To test this, I invited a couple of Colombian women I met through my colombian scholarship program to engage with my intervention.

I set up a large piece of cardboard with categories representing different layers of a person’s life, such as education, health, relationships, public space, and work. I then asked them to flag and describe instances where and how they felt marginalized in these specific areas. My main goal was to facilitate a conversation that led to a visualization of these red flags and create a kind of map showing where these issues occur in someone’s environment, as a collective conversation.

As we began, more questions arose:

What do the participants need to do once we’ve flagged everything? What’s the purpose behind it? Simply flagging didn’t seem enough.
The instructions were still too broad, there are many instances where they felt the gender norms.
There are likely many things that could be flagged, but there’s no awareness at the moment that these issues could or should be flagged. So, how can they identify them?
How to deal when the topics and conversations are too triggering for someone.

Once again, the feedback allowed me to see the gap in my proposial and with it came the the idea of creating a board game to facilitate conversations about gender normalization. I wanted to make it a visual and interactive activity for identifying these issues. The image of red flags spread across the space reminded me of games like Risk, and I thought this could be an interesting way to approach the topic.

As I kept on thinking about this new idea, I realized I needed the insight of a psycologist into how to approach this conversations with the entire respect and ethics it requieres. Laura Vega, the psycologist I talked to, recommended exploring the idea that not every situation is entirely “red” for everyone; there’s a whole spectrum of what people consider normal, depending on their own experiences. However, she noted that having a collective space to process and reflect on these differences could be valuable. Instead of planning a game focused on placing red flags, perhaps it could involve removing them as a way to address and overcome these issues.

Feedback about Flag the gap after intervention

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So, after leaving my participants by themselves with the stickers to explore, it was clear there was something going “wrong” because as I tried to aske them how was it going they kept on saying to me that they forgot about it and that they needed more time to do so.

These are some of their own comments:

They are genuinly interested in this topic, they felt intrigued and excited about an excersie that allowed them to question the ir environmet.
Nevertheless, as they faced the public space, they were fearful about disrupting the public space with red flags. They were afraid of the consequences of their use and didn’t dare to risk it. For example, one of them wanted to place one red flag on the gym or in a public bathroom but didn’t think it was appropriate.
They were confused about if they should place the sticker on an object that they felt was baldy designed but questioned if the gender variable was really the reason why it felt unconfortable for them, or just the fact that they were smaller. They asked for better guidance in this area, since it wasn’t clear and suggested more detailed information in the instructions I gave to them.
One of them suggested more interaction with other people since it felt as a lonely process.

My own conclusions to the feedback are:

Letting them to interact with this by themselves was not an accurate approach since it still felt too broad for them and without the guidance they kept forgetting to do the activity. I had to remember them a couple of times of it. Everyone has their own responsibilities to do and trying to add a new one felt like too much for the,
The gap I was still trying to make them identify was still too broad, and it clearly demands a more delimited focus. Maybe that also had an impact into the lack of intervention they had.
There’s still some interest and opportunities to keep on working it this, I think maybe as a guided activity could work better. The idea of the red flags was clear though and it made sense to them.

Update about interventions

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At the moment, I’m trying to find someone to collaborate with for my workshop at the Artivism Festival. I’ve had the chance to interview two different people, both of whom could be very interesting additions to the project. The one I’m most excited about is Asma, the director of the East End Women’s Museum. She is absolutely brilliant, and I think the museum’s mission aligns closely with my personal interests.

I really like the idea of collaboration. Initially, I felt a bit conflicted because this project felt very personal, like something I needed to do on my own. However, I now believe it will be much richer with the perspectives of experts and having someone who could confront me about the gaps I have in my ideas.

Thinking about how I could further expand my “Flag the Gap” project, I came up with the another idea of doing an intervention at the festival. I was inspired by an installation at the Olympics where people were asked, “What is the hardest challenge you have overcome?” and they wrote their responses on gold medals.

For my intervention, I could create an interactive stand where I leave a bunch of red flags and pose an open question like:

“What is the biggest sexist and misogynistic red flag in our environment that we have normalized? What gender gap we have normalized in our evironmet?”

On another table, I could add green flags for positive actions or spaces that promote equality or a radical thinking.

This way, participants can engage by both identifying problematic areas and celebrating the spaces that are making progress.

The ball keeps on rolling

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So, I’ve distributed a couple of my beautiful envelopes with the stickers and instructions to two different persons: Erin and Lydia. They will have the chance to interact with them for a week so I’ve got to come with the ethical participation format and some feedback questions so I can keep on improving.

Engagement:

From 1 to 5, 1 being not easy and 5 being super easy, how easy was it for you to understand and follow the instructions in the envelope?
Did you find the process of identifying and flagging gaps engaging? Why or why not?
Could you talk me through your thought process when you decided to use the stickers? What things did you have in consideration?

2. Experience:

What emotions or thoughts did you experience while placing the red flags?
Were there any challenges you faced while participating in the activity?
In one word, how would you describe the activity? Why?

3. Effectiveness:

Do you think the red flags effectively highlighted the gaps you identified? Why or why not?
How did others around you react to the flags you placed?

4. Suggestions:

What improvements would you suggest for the instructions or the overall activity?
Is there anything you would add or change to make the intervention more impactful?

5. Outcome:

Did the activity prompt any new thoughts or reflections about the spaces or objects around you?
Would you be interested in participating in similar activities in the future? Why or why not?

Update – first week of August.

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After a brief tutorial-conversation with Richard last week, he help me realize that the fear that motivated me to change my topic was the pressure from people asking for a final product—one that I don’t have yet. This made me doubtful of my process. However, we reflected on how there’s never actually a final product; there are only iterations upon iterations of a project. With that in mind, I decided to act on the ideas I had: I printed stickers, created an Instagram account, and set a goal for this week to give out five envelopes to five different people with whom I can follow up for feedback after a week.

People who I have thought on giving them stickers:

Erin – Skaped organizator
Anny – Student from UAL
Leave one at the feminist library (I’m going to a workshop this weekend)
Marina – Student from UAL
¿?

Another interesting project I’m working on is the workshop I’m going to facilitate on August 31st at the Artivism Festival. I’ve been collaborating with a group of people from the organization Skaped – we are called the steering group-, and we are planning the entire event. I’m in charge of the workshops area, so I will be facilitating one workshop myself and also, I need to decide on the workshop and facilitator for the other. This has been a very important experience because it has helped me start networking with organizations interested in the intersection of art and social justice, which aligns closely with my own interests.

With that said, I really hope that by the end of August, I’ll have more information about how different people react to my interventions and my topic of interest.