Cultural Colonisation: The challenge for progressive creatives
As values led creatives and as technologists we believe it’s critical to routinely reflect on the political context of our work, as the creative process can often unintentionally perpetuate some of the social challenges that our work hopes to address.
In the last 12 months we’ve been increasingly reflecting on the role colonisation has played in shaping our ways of seeing, knowing and acting in the world. Acting on this, we have begun attempting to deliberately ‘de-colonise’ our practice — a practice which has marginalised or diminished the perspectives of people from outside of the Euro-centric world.
What is cultural colonisation?
It is important to emphasise that decolonisation is not interchangeable with ‘diversity’.
The two concepts, although similar, are fundamentally different. While conversations around diversity seek to ensure that many different constituencies have a seat at the table — de-colonialism instead seeks to identify cultural markers, artefacts tropes and thought patterns that often unconsciously shape our work.
These markers often assert that the dominant, often anglo-western design principles are ‘good’ and others are diminished or illegitimate. It acknowledges that our cultural structures exist within a system of privilege and oppression, and that much of the culture we have come to see as ours has actually been appropriated or stolen.
Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima usefully illustrates the concept, reflecting on cultural colonisation in film by saying:
…as kids, we tried to act out the things we had seen in the movies. We used to play cowboys and Indians in the mountains around Gondar…We acted out the roles of these heroes, identifying with the cowboys conquering the Indians. We didn’t identify with the Indians at all and we never wanted the Indians to win. Even in Tarzan movies, we would become totally galvanised by the activities of the hero and follow the story from his point of view, completely caught up in the structure of the story. Whenever Africans sneaked up behind Tarzan, we would scream our heads off, trying to warn him that ‘they’ were coming”.
What does it look like?
That’s a harder question.
For educator and designer Danah Abdulla, one member of the research group Decolonising Design, “decoloniality is about shattering the familiar.” She says that design today “does not disrupt the status quo, it does not disorder the established order.” Recognising that capitalism “is an instrument of colonisation,” and therefore that it’s almost impossible to truly decolonize in Western society at present, she says that decoloniality is about reimagining something beyond the current system we exist in. Abdulla and her group’s co-founders have written extensively on the colonial systems within which contemporary design operates.
Beyond the overt colonist representations — this famous painting of Cook’s landing is even painted to look more like the more familiar english seaside than Australia’s coastline.
In everyday design work, to “shatter the familiar” might start by rethinking the needs of the audience you’re designing for. For example, have you considered how people of different ethnicities may identify with what you’re creating? An aspect of decoloniality is questioning how solutions might be experienced in someone else’s shoes.
The process can extend to something small like selecting typefaces. Many designers will spring for a certain font because it’s “timeless.” But will a diverse audience see it the same way? Clara Balaguer of the Filipino publishing imprint Hardworking Goodlooking proposes the following exercise for “the Comic Sans, design-educated haters” in an interview with Walker Art’s The Gradient: “Use Comic Sans, Curlz, Brush Script, Papyrus. Understand why people respond to it. Accept that social constituencies (not clients but constituencies) have made a choice that should be respected instead of ridiculed […] Challenge yourself to dismantle what the (Ivy League?) man has told you is ugly, uncouth, primitive, savage.”
How do we act on it?
- Ask a simple question while reviewing work. Who has determined that this is ‘looks good’ or ‘is right’? Often decolonised work can be challenging to ‘professional’ trends or conventions.
- Don’t just seek additional ‘perspectives’ from those in marginalised or colonised groups. We need to create the space to actively collaborate in the design process — heightening the work through doing the work.
- Recognise when to use certain imagery and how to engage with it respectfully. For example, many of our staff are part of a cultural group which has played a historically significant role in exploiting Australia’s indigenous peoples. As a result, we believe it would be inappropriate for our non-indigenous staff to create artwork in an indigenous Australian style (or sourcing it without knowing who did create it). Instead we have partnered with artists who can speak truthfully in their own artistic tradition.
At the end of the day, we are a small company and contained by the structure we operate in. But we are passionate about not only engaging in this reflection, but doing what we can to further this process.
If you’re interested in working together on a project which considers this as part of the process, or if you are from a marginalised background and looking to get a place in the progressive creative community — let us know.
Alternatively, if you are looking to work with people with lived experience of a certain perspective — we are happy to refer you to someone more appropriate.
For more on this topic, feel free to review any of the below:
- Decolonising Design
- Decolonizing Design Reader
- Depatriachise Design
- Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall’s Decolonizing Design Lecture at the University of Minnesota College of Design
- The Politics of Design
Colonialism more broadly
