Conversations About Our Culture

Conversations About Our Culture is a participatory workshop that explores topics of unconscious racism towards Asian-Australians. The workshop gives individuals a space to openly discuss their unique experiences, collectively make ‘discursive’ design objects and reflect upon one’s cultural identity and belonging

CLIENTUniversity of Technology Sydney (UTS)

YEAR2020-2022

SCOPEWorkshop Design & Facilitation
Design Research (Mental health, well-being & anti-racism)

AGDA AWARDS

1x Merit
Miscellaneous

2x Finalist
Moving Image 2021
Digital 2021

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The design research project was originally produced in the Visual Communication Honours degree at the University of Technology Sydney in 2020. Since then, it has evolved into a series of mental health workshops that were run in partnership with the UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion during Mental Health Week in 2022. The work was later adapted with a greater focus on how racism impacts mental health, and expanded to include participants from Asian-Australians to People of Colour and non-People of Colour.

A special thank you to the UTS Visual Communication honours cohort of 2020 and mentors (Zoë Sadokierski, Jacquie Lorber-Kasunic, Jacqueline Gothe), the UTS Centre of Social Justice and Inclusion, in particular Dr Elaine Laforteza and my co-workers for participating, contributing and supporting the work.

The Origin

As an Australian-born-Chinese person it can be difficult to navigate my sense of cultural identity. A major aspect of this is how we perceive ourselves and our interactions with others in relation to the inherent racism embedded in Australian society.

In 2020 I personally experienced targeted racism related to the coronavirus. From this experience I realised how important it is to address these issues – not just acts of targeted racism, but also the accumulation of the encounters that may go unnoticed. In particular, one issue with unconscious racism is the lack of understanding of how thoughtless language can cause ongoing impacts. It is important to problematise this language by bringing inherent biases and unconsciously racist comments to the fore. This language serves to normalise racial stereotypes and ultimately contributes to racial tensions beneath the surface of everyday social and professional interactions.

During my studies, the workshop was iterated four times with three different groups - my family, friends and university peers all from Asian-Australian background. Each version was improved and built on feedback from the participants, e.g. preferences on workbook structure, digital vs. analogue outputs, strategies on engaging, re-energising and creating a comfortable environment for the participants.

The Framework

The term ‘microaggression’ is commonly used in academia to describe unconscious racism, however I found that the term was alienating for my audience. Therefore, I conducted language testing with my family, friends and peers and chose the terms ‘unconscious racism’ (unintended), backhanded racism (intended as a joke) and targeted racism (intended to humiliate or harm).

I designed this framework diagram and arranged the terms to visually represent the complexities of the research space. The triangular formation conveys the interconnectedness between the ideas, while the coloured undefined edges expresses the blurriness of the terms – sometimes it is not clear or useful to distinguish between the intent of a racist comment.

The Workshop

Prior to the workshop, participants are asked to complete a workbook that will later help guide the discussion. During the workshop, participants collectively create two design objects – a mobius strip and a flag-fold book. After the workshops, I combined all the previous flag-fold books together to design a refined knowledge object that can be shared with future workshops.

Mobius Strip

A Mobius strip is made by taking a strip of paper, twisting it and taping the ends together to form an infinite loop. The nature of the strip allows for two conversations to occur simultaneously.

To create this Mobius strip I asked my participants to respond to the phrases “Where are you from? Where are you really from? Where are you parents from?...” on one side of the paper. Afterwards we combined the responses together to create one long Mobius strip. Creating a tangible object from these unconciously racist experiences highlights the continuous nature of these comments, whilst also generating a sharable outcome that participants can read and reflect upon.

Flag-fold book

A flag-fold book has rows of paper flags attached to an accordion folded spine. The structure of the book allows viewers to see multiple layers and narratives when read page by page or pulled out with the spine fully open.

The flag-book idea originally came from an experiment in a studio class. It was interesting to see how collating a collection of unconsciously racist experiences into physical, tangible layers of paper could create an eye-opening experience for the viewer.

To make this flag book about unconscious racism towards Asian Australians, I asked my family, friends and university peers to respond (handwritten flags) to a series of common unconsciously racist comments (typeset flags) directed at Asian people. Materialising these comments and responses into a collectively produced flag book emphasises the weight and accumulation of these belittling comments.

Complexities of Cultural Identity: Contextual Review

In addition to the design research project, I wrote a contextual review that explores the complexities of cultural identity, specifically focusing on areas of racism in contemporary Australia in the form of microaggressive language towards Asian-Australians. The research topic stemmed from a self-reflection of my sense of belonging in Australia. A study of a range of academic texts and creative works played a key role in expanding my understanding of racism and its manifestations in both public and private spaces.

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