Abstract
This contribution discusses results from the implementation of undergraduate and graduate-level projects applied in traditional design studio settings to explore the visualization of identity. Since 2014, the author—a Central American woman of color teaching in public universities in Texas and Florida—has developed multiple hands-on class activities that focus on self-expression, self-awareness, memory, and positionality. In the undergraduate level, these activities start with the introduction of concepts and terminology from traditional design canons (i.e. principles from modernism, the Bauhaus, and other (mostly) Western European Avant Garde movements). Once students gain an understanding of these canonical principles, they embark in a self-discovery journey to determine whether these principles represent them, their context, background, and/or identity. Relevant discussions and reciprocal community-building occur during these processes in the classroom. In the graduate level, these visual explorations are based on introductory auto-ethnographic methods and studies focused on memory. At all times, these projects result in tangible design and art products—books, visual essays, collages, typographic compositions—, unveiling one-of-a-kind visual languages. The author reflects on the disruptive potential of these design activities. She refers to how the unearthing and visualization of unique knowledges inform critical perspectives of design thinking and making. By facilitating design methodologies that are curious and inclusive of the multiplicity of existing cosmovisions, we help students to learn about and embrace pluriversal and collaborative concepts of design, giving them tools to formulate appropriate reactions to exclusionary, oppressive, marginalizing, and disrespectful design.
Keywords
pluriversality; visual language; design disruption; design pedagogy
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0013
Citation
Hernández, G.(2021) Visual Exploration of Identity as a Critical Tool to Disrupt Traditional Canons in Design Pedagogy, in Leitão, R.M., Men, I., Noel, L-A., Lima, J., Meninato, T. (eds.), Pivot 2021: Dismantling/Reassembling, 22-23 July, Toronto, Canada. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0013
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Visual Exploration of Identity as a Critical Tool to Disrupt Traditional Canons in Design Pedagogy
This contribution discusses results from the implementation of undergraduate and graduate-level projects applied in traditional design studio settings to explore the visualization of identity. Since 2014, the author—a Central American woman of color teaching in public universities in Texas and Florida—has developed multiple hands-on class activities that focus on self-expression, self-awareness, memory, and positionality. In the undergraduate level, these activities start with the introduction of concepts and terminology from traditional design canons (i.e. principles from modernism, the Bauhaus, and other (mostly) Western European Avant Garde movements). Once students gain an understanding of these canonical principles, they embark in a self-discovery journey to determine whether these principles represent them, their context, background, and/or identity. Relevant discussions and reciprocal community-building occur during these processes in the classroom. In the graduate level, these visual explorations are based on introductory auto-ethnographic methods and studies focused on memory. At all times, these projects result in tangible design and art products—books, visual essays, collages, typographic compositions—, unveiling one-of-a-kind visual languages. The author reflects on the disruptive potential of these design activities. She refers to how the unearthing and visualization of unique knowledges inform critical perspectives of design thinking and making. By facilitating design methodologies that are curious and inclusive of the multiplicity of existing cosmovisions, we help students to learn about and embrace pluriversal and collaborative concepts of design, giving them tools to formulate appropriate reactions to exclusionary, oppressive, marginalizing, and disrespectful design.