Issue #2 - Identity, December 2020
This year has provided us with many unprecedented and unexpected challenges already, but for many, a global pandemic and most certainly, lockdown and isolation, has made us more aware of what is happening in the world. How has our identity shifted after a global pandemic? With so many people having to readjust to new living measures, has this shift altered the way in which we interact with each other; has this changed how we view ourselves? How do we present ourselves to others, in person or online? Does our identity mean something new in 2020?
Articles
iel, Beyond the Gender Binary?
Carla Donati
Recent graduate from MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins, Carla Donati questions whether we can break away from the gendering of objects in the Industrial Design sector. Their graduate project iel seeks to create a space for a plurality of gender identities, while challenging the normative narratives of gender and sexuality.
Notes On - Objects of Desire: WIP
Pleun van Dijk
Speculative Artist & Designer Pleun van Dijk revisits incl. for our second issue on identity. She gives us a glimpse into her ongoing project, Objects of Desire, which investigates the intimate relationship between humans and the objects we are surrounded by. Through a process based approach, we get an insight into her projected sexuality of objects and the ways in which we physically and mentally connect with them.
The Shift: From Blindness Towards Light of Discrimination
Paula Chang
Paula Chang grew up as a Taiwanese person in Spain, and then moved to The Netherlands to study a masters at Design Academy Eindhoven, focusing her thesis on being an outsider in a foreign land. She discusses her experience of microagression, the notion of her identity, and the discrimination that sadly came with it.
What do we talk about when we talk about Anxiety
Marine Renaudineau
French designer researcher from MA Material Futures, Marine Renaudineau discusses her short documentary What do we talk about when we talk about Anxiety which is dedicated to giving a voice to people who cover the whole spectrum of anxiety. Through authentic and disarmingly honest testimonies, she presents a more humanised version of the topic, bringing a parallel approach to what the medical literature already gives us.
A Hybrid Stool: Identity in an Intricate Present
Gabriele Lorusso
The 'Exotic Experience'
Lucy Rowan
Due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, designer Gabriele Lorusso had to take the life he made in London and move back to a rural part of Italy. While noticing the hybridity of working in nature, but being surrounded by technology, he took a milking stool, typically found in rural areas, and fused it with the embodiment of the modern era, a smartphone, to create the Hybrid Stool, which looks at our identity in an intricate present.
Writer Lucy Rowan educates us on the issue of exotification, its etymology, and the connotations it demonstrates through microaggressions that exclude women. Explaining the unflattering nature of the term, she outlines the problems associated with feminism and ethnicity, and why exotifying BAME women is far from a compliment.
Retracing Eden; Ideal Beauties
Gabriel L. Gooch Blanco
Three's A Crowd? Designing for a Polyamorous Future
HIS, HIS & HERS Collective
Reflecting upon the "male gaze" as the notion of subject matter, artist & photographer Gabriel L. Gooch Blanco uses photographs as a way to trick the viewer into thinking of the body as female and thus revealing the workings of the male gaze. Through collage and solarisation techniques, he aims to challenge two-dimensional contemporary views and the categorisation of masculinity and femininity.
Designers Timothy Liu, Chris Cooper & Dasha Tsapenko formed the HIS, HIS & HERS Collective after meeting in university and falling in love. They slowly realised that services and products are hard to come by for a trio. In their project, they question why, in a world that's becoming more open and accepting of personal choices, are we still faced with the taboo surrounding polyamory?
Exploring Feminist Theory & Feminist Architecture
Jessie Buckle
Our Research & Design Editor, Jessie Buckle, is a recently qualified Part 1 Architect from RIBA, and in her experience of studying architecture, a male-orientated industry, she explores feminist theory and feminist architecture. Through an investigational lens, she discusses how the exploring of feminist architecture depicts the relationship between feminist methodologies and design approaches which impact our understanding and connection with architecture.
Interviews
The Disappearing Innocents of a World in Crisis
Sammi Drew
Ndebele Superhero
Zana Masombuka
Photographer Sammi Drew questions the missing identity of farmed animals that are commodified and objectified purely for human consumption and usage. Her work The Disappearing Innocents opens up the concept of life in this current system of society as being flooded and overwhelmed by the incredibly violent and damaging processes involved in the animal agriculture industry.
Zana 'Ndebele Superhero' Masombuka is a Johannesburg based creative director who draws inspiration from her upbringing in rural KwaNdebele, in a small town called Siyabuswa. She discusses her art practice which focuses on Africa's active role in the world, how African artists pioneer the stories being written about their people, and the preservation of its heritage.
People & Place
Lois O'Hara
Womxn Living in a Male Social Media World
Zaya
We caught up with multidisciplinary designer Lois O'Hara, whose work consists of the exploration of the relationship between people and places. Her practice takes many forms such as mural paintings, design, art direction & illustration, while investigating the fluidity and capturing the movement of time. We interviewed her to see what are the major influences in her work and how colour can be such an important factor in creating positive effects on people and places.
Tattoo Artist and singer, Zaya Hastra Kai focuses her tattoo work around the theme of nature, botanical illustrations, animals and the female form. We caught up with Zaya about her experiences dealing with the ridiculous guidelines that Instagram have in place, that nearly ended in her account being permanently deleted. She discusses the presence of the female identity on social media and the right to self-expression for the female form.
Holy Fuck: Exploring the 7 Futures of Sex
Jeanneke Scholtens
Curating Identity: An interview with Maria McLintock
Maria McLintock
Our Inclusive Features Editor caught up with Jeanneke Scholtens, a future explorer and owner of the future agency, Buro Zurro. Together with Mabel Nummerdor, she wrote the book, Holy Fuck which explores 7 scenarios in different future time frames, exploring the ways in which we have sex. She gives us a tease of some emerging trends from Holy Fuck such as the rise of VR sex, future of binary forms and the babymachine.
Educator, writer and assistant curator at the Design Museum, London, Maria McLintock talks about her involvement in curating the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition and the types of projects that she has found most relevant to the theme of identity. She also talks to us about ethics and her personal project outside of being a curator, which looks at bureaucratic structures and technologies that impact the process of seeking asylum in Europe.
Stories
The Techno Venus
Julie Patard
Brussels based Visual Artist & Graphic Designer, Julie Patard explores the modern female identity through a video self-portrait. Balancing between the freedom and the oppression of past female identities defined by males in the media, she questions whether women really have the freedom to portray themselves on social media, asking, what is our search for perfection?
Omnibus
Gabriela Chojnacki
In a specially created illustration for incl., illustrator Gabriela Chojnacki is a fierce feminist, advocating for sex-positivity. She draws bodies mainly to make us all feel more human in such an over digitalised, infinitely retouched world to emphasise that all bodies are valid and beautiful.
#WeGoneBeAlright
Genesis Adewole
Visual Artist Genesis Adewole created her oil painting, Wearing the Blood of my Bruthas and Sistaz as a response to the murders of the hundreds of black people that have occured in this world. She believes that even though she doesn't know any of these people, the black community wears the burden of the unjust deaths of these people. Black lives have always mattered and will forever matter.
Inclusive Reviews
incl. Team
For the first time you can read our reviews on themes of inclusivity in film, TV and media from the incl. team. We discuss the shaping of identity in The Social Dilemma, what we all weigh with Jameela Jamil's iweigh, structural racism with Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, and the divisions of social class in Snowpiercer.