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.
I had a conversation with Emilia Márquez, who was the director of the gender department at the NGO where I worked in Colombia. She has always been involved in gender and advocacy issues, especially in topics related to public policies and inclusitivy.
I told her a bit about my project and asked her, from her experience, what gap she thinks is still not being addressed or what we should pay more attention to. She shared the following insights:
She challenged me on the lens through which I’m understanding gender and how I’m considering an inclusive perspective, since these conversations usually have a cis-centered and white-centered focus. It assumes an idea of gender based on what is understood by white people: a thin, petite woman with a body shape different from the average man.
She mentioned that an interesting topic for her could be the creation of clothing sizes, based on a study done by two people in the USA, which gave rise to the statues of Norman and Norma, the model of what was considered “normal” in the USA in the 1950s. This still has a direct impact on how we relate to sizes today.
For her, a relevant issue is: what are the definitions of “normal” in statistics? Because this creates a huge bias and directly impacts how we relate to things.
The materialization of objects ends up materializing us in return. Materiality ultimately produces us.
What if we create a lab to explore new ways of relating to objects?
Regarding intersectionality: clearly, you won’t be able to test your intervention on all body types, but it’s important that your theoretical framework be applicable to all bodies, so that each person, through their life experience, can relate to what you’re proposing. That’s intersectionality.
It would be interesting to look at it from a participatory methodology where people can express how they relate to the subject, using experiential methodologies that spark curiosity to imagine parallel worlds.
What do we need? To talk about new sizes? To create new sizes? To not care about sizes? Size justice for overweight people?
This was for me one of the most important conversations I had during the masters becuase she invited me to challenge an specific issue that I can relate too.
Societies that dont respect womens anger, don’t respect women.
I saw this TedTalk and I thought it was so powerful, because I do feel that in Colombia I wasnt allowed to be angry most of the times. I think that this feeling has lead many of my considerations during my research, and it has been one great biase of mine. I am angry and so everyone else should be angry? It doesn’t seem very fair, but at the same time it isn’t fair that I’m angry either. So how can we get it right?
Update: I sent and email to Soraya wanting to chat with her and I realized too late that her answer was in my spam. I froze becuase I didn’t really know what to ask her and so, I haven’t answered her back 🙁
After taking time to think carefully and prepare the presentation for the assessment, I realized I still needed more feedback from external advisors. So, I took on the task of reaching out to even more people.
I have a spreadsheet where I have a track of anyone who I have ever contacted. Here’s the link.
The idea I have so far is to create a board game as a tool to spark conversations about behaviors we’ve made invisible. This was my major insight: How do we identify what we don’t know?How do we imagine something that doesn’t exist in front of us? Very complicated, right?
So, I already have a list of people whose opinions I want to hear. I’ve sent out many emails, and I’ve had a conversation with Sofía Díaz.
She is a great university friendwho has dedicated her professional career to working on gender-related issues, specially from the sustainability focus. I reached out to her because I’ve always respected her opinion, and I know she has experience working with communities in Colombia, always with a gender focus. Right now she’s working with a charity that do workshops on gender and sustainability in rural areas of Colombia.
During our conversation, I shared my creative process, and I think what stood out most to her was the perspective on the design of objects as a reproduction of the oppressive system. I tried steering the conversation back to gender norms, but she kept circling back, genuinely surprised by something she had never considered before.
Here are some key points from her comments, which also reflect much of what I think about my project:
Objects evolve with the populations, and we all interact with them in different ways.
There’s a clear difficulty in inventing something new, but above all, what are objects really?
How masculinized are our thoughts?
The feminine struggle lies in the fact that we’ve never truly known what our bodies need. It’s hard to recognize those needs and fight for them because we were never taught.
She asked me, What happens after the game? The encounter alone is already positive, but how can we turn this into something bigger?
What do we do with so much frustration?
What can we do together? The sense of togetherness makes us feel like we can handle anything. We need to awaken that emotion. En manada
What we can’t see, we can’t change, but we’ve never liked inhabiting rage and frustration.
Going out into the streets with a group of women responds to impact and change—transforming the gaze.
But definitely, I would make the target group even smaller because each population has a different relationship with objects.
Thinking about carrying a little red flag all our lives—this is the fight to recognize what we deserve.
There’s no dialogue with our bodies, and we are afraid to talk about what we feel and what happens to them.
At the end she was very happy to be part of the conversaion but was not sure on how much she could add to what I’ve done.
I have a feeling that most of the times when I reach out to experts it becomes a little bit like a tutorial and it’s hard for me to cut that habit.
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.
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.
My tutorial feedback made me realize that there’s still a significant gap in my project—ironic, given that my project is called Flag the Gap.
As Diana mentioned, I have the ingredients to bring everything together, but I need to find the right connection in my thought process to create something impactful.
I also had a call with Beatriz Leal, a Chilean feminist design teacher, seeking external validation. She gave me similar feedback and encouraged me to be more critical about how I refer to objects. She pointed out that I haven’t acknowledged the agency of objects and suggested that another angle for the project could be understanding the reasons behind their creation. However, I reaffirmed to her that this isn’t the direction I want to pursue.
So, what am I interested in? What am I trying to really pursue?
After some reflection, I believe my research is about raising awareness about the normalized gender norms that shape how people experience their daily lives. but what do I mean by normalized gender norms? The socially accepted ideas of how men and women should behave, and how distorted they are that people have found their ways of adapting to it. For example, for feeling safe women walk during the night with the keys on their hands just to feel safer. The gender norm is the expectation that women must constantly be vigilant and take extra precautions to protect themselves from potential threats, especially when alone in public spaces at night. We have normalized this behaviours. We have made this our reality.
The flag is the normalization in our mind and behaviours.
It’s not just about objects, but about our overall perception of reality.
Of course, there are still some gaps. Why am I focusing on individuals rather than the system? Honestly, addressing a massive capitalist, sexist system is a complex challenge. I think I have a better chance of making an impact by focusing on individuals.
But there’s another gap. So far, I’ve only spoken with women. I need to engage with men and even non-binary people—that could provide some valuable insights.
And still, this is a growing process, so I think I might shift with time.
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.
