During the final round of tutorials, we focused on completing our final deliverables and elevating our pitch, making sure we were focusing on the most relevant aspects of our research. Elizabeth emphasized the importance of clearly explaining the logical connections between our ideas. We also discussed how to improve our blogs, a topic I’ve dedicated significant effort and time to, and I’m proud of it.
One of Elizabeth’s key lessons was the importance of keeping things concise and impactful. She often reminded us to prepare for counter-questions about our projects, a skill I’ve found invaluable for sharpening my ideas and communicating them effectively.
Among the group exercises we did, the most impactful for me was when Elizabeth asked us what we had placed in our “box of uncertainties” at the beginning of the year. My answer was ignorance, justice, and gender + design. Reflecting on this, I realized that my project and research had been taking shape in my mind even before the master’s program started. This year has been an opportunity to bring those ideas into the world and explore how they might create meaningful change.
Finally, Elizabeth reminded us that the final presentation is not just an assessment but also a celebration of the knowledge we’ve gained and the progress we’ve made. I find this to be ver special and was the first time that I approached education that was, as a celebration of knowldege! Amazing way of ending this insightful year.
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:
This was during the week of ….
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.
While finalizing my research and creating the art piece for the festival, I had a significant realization: my main critique is about how things are designed for the few, yet the engaging aspect of my project is only accessible to people who can see. Once again, I find myself unintentionally excluding others through my design decisions, contradicting my own critique.
For example, my use of ableist language, such as referencing “visibility” and “invisibility” in a project centered on sight, revealed another layer of my biases. While this aligns with my theme of “making the invisible visible,” it also underscores the need to consider inclusivity, something I now wish I had addressed earlier.
This is not only for my own project but for art in general.
When I shared this with Zuleika, she suggested exploring ways to improve accessibility, such as adding audio descriptions or image captions. However, given my limited time and budget, I understand these solutions may only be partial. Still, it’s important to acknowledge this in both my final reflective report and here on the blog.
This realization has reminded me that research—and life in general—is full of contradictions. Recognizing them is part of the process, and all we can do is strive to learn and do better.
Since we had our lesson and tutorial on reflective blogs, I’ve been thinking about how to improve mine, especially considering the importance it has in the creative process and the experience of learning.
My blog had several opportunities of improvement:
There was no guidance, no introduction of why the blog existed.
There were interesting post but they were all over the place and it was quite difficult for the reader to find an specifical onformation
I used pictures or videos but didn’t describe why I was using them and so it seemed random.
There was no context into why yellow and pink? Why is it Carolina, La Latina?
And so, I took on the recommendation of Elizabeth of printing the blogs and re reading them, understanding also how the Learning Objectives relate to my own creative process and the blogs. Printing them was quite useful since allowed me to read them while also making notes of what I thought of them and also was easy to categorise the information I was talking about.
This whole process took me a day and a half. I also had to send an email to the technicians of MyBlog because I was not sure how to make the introduction to always be on the main page and place on the menus the categories of the different units. At the end It was all worth it. Now, I’m sure I have a very functional blog, categorised and thought to be easier for the reader to navigate it.
From reading my blogs I found very interesting how seeing with a different perspective, since now I’m at the edge of the end, I always had so many ideas but a fear to act. I also think I had many personal and deep reflections. During the summer I read so many books, but I didn’t wrote about them, so that’s something I would have done different.
How do the research question and interventions interact? That’s a key question in this process! The research question is the materialization of your inquiry, just like the interventions — they are all interconnected. I can see that now, but I still feel like I have two branches of questions, as I’m uncertain about which direction to take.
My first attempt at a question and the one I finished my Unit 1 was: “How can we help people identify and question designs that reinforce power structures and inequality from a gender perspective?” Which led to FlagTheGap and the collage workshop with Skaped.
After those interventions, my second attempt was: “How can participatory interventions help people, especially women, recognize, question, and challenge normalized gender norms in their everyday environments?” Which led to the idea of making a board game about this, where we placed on a piece of cardboards the red flags of the environment we have normalized. It didn’t develop much after that.
After conversations with Sofía Díaz and Emilia Márquez, my question evolved into: “How can participatory interventions help individuals recognize and challenge invisible gender norms related to the concept of ‘average’ bodies and their impact on daily life?”
But now, reflecting on the interventions I’ve carried out, my biggest insight is that people often struggle to identify these gaps because they are difficult to articulate without prior awareness. The gap is in the gap. Additionally, a recurring theme is how to use this as an opportunity to encourage people to tap into their creative and speculative sides. I’m concerned that the reference to ‘average bodies’ feels a bit disconnected, but it was my attempt to narrow the focus to something more concrete than just gender norms.
As for what’s still pending, I have two or three potential conversations lined up with experts:
Rebecca Ladbury, the communications representative of TimesUpUK, an organization focused on gender violence, (We’ll have the meeting this Friday)
Sinem, the CEO of Feminist Design. I spoke with her at the beginning of my project, and she was very open to collaborating, (She’s back from holiday this week)
Asma, from the East End Women’s Museum, to get her opinion and feedback. (She’ll be back from holiday next week)
My goal is to create a project that could spark interest and potentially be showcased on Futuress, with the hope of eventually collaborating with them.
As I expressed to Richard my concerns about having to do interventions, he stopped me immediately and said, “It’s not about doing interventions because it’s a mandatory thing; it’s about what you want to learn.”
It’s all about making intangible questions tangible.
Ahhh… that changed everything in my mind. We do interventions to learn more about our ideas. It might have been something evident but I managed to overlook it somehow.
Trying to reframe what I’ve been researching during the summer and the new conversations I’ve had with the experts I interviewed last week, I revisited my conclusions:
People—at least the women I had contact with—do not have the language to speak about design. It’s clearly a privileged discipline. How can we give them a voice in this topic rather than having them feel intimidated? There is something to work with here.
I also had an important insight about “Flag the Gap.” I think I was holding on too tightly to my idea because it felt like something that could have so much impact or potential. But as Richard said, you’ve learned from it, and that’s perfect. It made me reflect on when I was in university and took some ceramics classes. The first lesson the teacher gave us was: never get attached to your ceramics; there’s a big chance that they are going to break. You invest a lot of hours into something, into your creation, but it can happen that while they’re in the oven, they break. Art is also about letting go. It was a hard thing to swallow because I still believe “Flag the Gap” has the power to become amazing. But at the moment, I need to experiment a little bit more, maybe with new topics and I feel ataching hardly to Flag the Gap is blinding me somehow. And who knows? Maybe Flag the gap will revive after.
After a very interesting summer, I had to present to Zuleika and Richard my learnings of the Unit 3. Thinking about what I wanted to say, the book How to fail successfully from Stousy came straight to mi mind. This book gave me so much confort during the days I felt I was not doing much or that I had no development in my project. It focuses on understading that it’s all part of the process, and that there’s not actually failure. And that’s why I decided to name my presentation that way: The Timeline of failing successfully.
Besides this, I saw this meme the other day, and it made me laugh a lot because I realized I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself—thinking that my topic is so intense, so relevant, and it’s just so much some times. As Richard said during the final Unit 3 presentation, I’m not going to save anyone; we’re just trying to learn.
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.
I think I owe my project and myself to be honest about why and what.
Why am I doing this?
Why is it so conflicting to me to talk sometimes about my project?
What am I reflecting with this project? What is it mirroring that sometimes hurts too much to see?
Perhaps the first, simplest, smallest, most urgent act of resistance each of us can take is to make our lists. Sit. Think. Write. Let yourself feel it. Allow yourself the rage of realising that there are more and more and more moments you’d forgotten – lost or stolen from you by the indifference of passers-by or the dismissal of those you loved and trusted. Let yourself reclaim them. Let yourself see this as a whole, each experience part of a bigger story.
Bates, Laura. Fix the System, Not the Women, Simon & Schuster, Limited, 2022.
This quote from Laura Bates made me feel so much. The anger, oh, the anger coming through.
But the anger is also tiring, what if I just want to be completely ignorant and thrive through ignorance? Is that even possible?
Through this creative process of asking and questioning so many times the purpose of my actions and the meaning of my words.
What do you want to say? What do you want people to understand?
So I make the list:
I was 5 and left alone by my parents at my uncle’s house.
I was 18 and my friend from school called me saying that my exboyfriend got into her bed one night but she was not worried about him doing that, just about what i could think about that
I was 20 and my mom told me not to fight to people who catcalled me in the streets
I was 21 and my friends didn’t tell me this guy had my pictures without my consent.
I was 22 and was with my friend when she found out a guy had her pictures without consent. Held her hand.
I was 24 and my exbofriend once again forced himself to another friend. People still talk to him.
A woman working in Law. A joke.
A woman studying Arts. A waste.
British boyfriend. Looking for the passport, right?
Fuck.
As I kept on navigating all of the emotion this makes me feel, I realized: I am doing this project for myself. For what I need to heal, for what probably I will never heal. For the anger, for the sadness, for the power, for the fear, for the love and for me.
In Colombia, there’s a common phrase people use when they’re angry: “¡me sacó la piedra!” (literally, “it made me pick up the stone”), referring to how, in a moment of anger, someone might grab a stone to throw it. I know, it’s a bit violent. This phrase came to mind because a lot of my motivation around my gender-related project stems from the anger I feel about injustice. It makes me angry that women have to adapt to fit in. Ultimately, it makes me want to pick up a stone.
With this in mind, I thought of creating a small intervention where people reflect on those situations that make them “pick up the stone,” and, in a literal sense — in a safe physical space — they can actually pick up a stone and break things with it. In the end, I would collect the debris and we would use it to create a mosaic.
