We learn how to see and treat each other partially from the images we see about ourselves and others. Through personal experience and my work with marginalized communities, I know how much many of us struggle to find safe, welcoming places and people, and the effects that visual representations (or the lack of) have on people and society. Our prejudices and biases are fed by images.
Graphic design is one tool we use to create these images, and this tool can also be used to open up spaces for everyone’s humanity, through the making of a more inclusive visual culture. I use my body and the bodies of others as a way to push back on the impositions of meaning placed on us because of our color, sex, gender expression, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and other factors.
During a lecture at VCFA Natalia Ilyin said that societies invent themselves through images. My work is asking and exploring different answers to a question: what happens when these images become unstable?
