How does one represent a culture?
My thesis explores and questions how one can design culture to be accessible without losing its context, history, and tradition.
This question stems from my experience in designing for Boston University’s Filipino Student Association
and Bon Me, a Vietnamese Food Truck company. In the process of designing for these cultural organizations, I kept questioning how could I, one who identifies herself as an immigrant and Filipino-American, come to terms with translating the culture of my own alongside to what I don’t belong to? What were my boundaries in terms of aesthetics, appropriation, and respect? I’ve come to know that beyond culture, Designers are essentially translators of content. To a certain extent, we are in charge of how our specific audience reacts to the things we produce. In the terms of handling culture, it can be a difficult subject.
Architects and designers of the past have had a long history of exploiting cultures not of their own. Especially when it comes to societies with a long history of oppression and subjugation. You’re in a different field of conversation when you talk about western design. Many African, South, and Southeast Asian countries did not have the freedom of expression alike to the remnants of the Bauhaus movement in the 1920s and beyond.
The designer’s purpose was not to connect with its audience, but rather achieve the complete opposite of that, and it is to create a disconnect and a contrast between the subject and spectator.
And how can I, as a designer, respond to other designers about this? That’s where accessibility comes in. I intend to explore and present Filipino culture through the aesthetic accessible of a child’s minds presented to adults!
With the A-Z book, I just wanted to be loose with my designs, have fun in order for my audience to have fun as well. Beyond that, I was heavily influenced by the MFA’s Winnie the Pooh exhibit in engaging its audience not with a tone of mysticism, but one of adoration.
To be more specific of what aspects I’d like to dive deeper the heavy influence, of other cultures! What makes Filipino culture so unique is the constant re-conceptualization of the qualities of their conquerors into making it their own. For example, this bird above is Balut, there’s a heavy influence of Chinese origins. One always sees this cuisine in travel shows as the most exotic and disgusting thing to eat when one visits the Philippines. I created a cuter style for it to welcome people on learning more.
I want to de-mystify many things that seem separate and seem un-relatable.
Below are more the sketches i’ve done in the process of making the book:
