Cultural Diversity
P2 group A

Beyza Demirci (1010432)
Ji-An Oh (1046606)
Francis Belte (1008215)

We started by interviewing people and got inspired by their answers

1. What ethnic background / race do you identify as?

2. What reminds you of your ethnic backround / race?

3. Does your ethnic background / race play a role in your daily life?

4. If you had to choose your ethnicity / race, would you have changed it? If yes, why?

5. Does your appearance restrict you from opportunities everyday life?

6. Please, draw the object(s) that remind you of your ethnic backround / race.

Afterwards we got the idea to create an image of faces combined together to show the similarities of people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds

Then we decided to make a speculative future scenario of how the world would look like to not have racism or the concept of race and what economic and political structures would need to be overturned

Speculative future scenario

It is the year 2100 and the past 100 years have been some of the most violent and brutal in recent history. Totalitarian regimes have risen and crumbled due to climate collapse, supply chain collapse and the growing trend of self determination amongst the exploited.
This scenario will look at the idea of race specifically. In the 2020s and before the idea and the violence of racism was perpetuated by growing economic inequality. After the no turning back point of climate collapse was reached people started working to remove the hierarchies which hold the economies of the world.
The mega corporations of the data economy were stormed and the infrastructure became publicly available for use. This was a spectacular feat of organization.
The soldiers of the biggest armies of the world and the workers of global corporations began working together to reverse the financial flows of the world to give space for true individualism and self determination.
The following period was brutal due to the attacks of the old opposing regimes which were slowly collapsing due to their inefficiency and the retaliations of the new world order which presupposes a more fair redistribution of resources. The old regimes continued their methods of organized violence against more fair systems of economic redistribution to maintain their power. Due to the impending climate catastrophe it became impossible for them to hold their power.
In the struggle to establish this new order we also fight against the white supremacist power structures that perpetuate racism and the entire concept and identity of race resulting in the term not being used at all.
The new economic system gives people the freedom from wage-slavery and the freedom to do the things that make their lives enjoyable and truly a life worth living. People start working maybe a day a week and the economy still functions because it does not need to overwork everyone for a profit incentive.
Walking through a city of this new world order we see publicly available workshops like the ones at our academy - available just like a library. We see cooperation for housing, food distribution and utility distribution. The Bestand of the old world order is reworked to make resources available to all. People tackle the old consequences of the economic system together by talking things through, through interventions and through collective support not imprisonment or punishment. When instances of racism occur they are discussed and through dialogue the internalized racism of the old structures is weeded out in a way that doesn't exclude a person from society like a prison would.
A city in a world like this would give everyone not just the freedom From but the freedom To do and the freedom to be self determined. And not just the ones with capital.

Now the question has become - How do we get there? And do we have any ideas for how to start?

To answer this we are making a zine to give prompts to our classmates and to give them the space and the platform to respond to the prompts by writing down or drawing their ideas.

below are some images from the zine

We decided to use images from the internet to also reflect on the state of the discourse on race online and in design. In the zine we will combine the images and reappropriate them by viewing them as poor images (reference to Hito Steyrl)
By placing the digital images in an analogue context we will also challenge the boundaries of what is considered real or authentic and contrast that with the idea of 'race' being a colonialist constructed concept

And here is some of our research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BibBMBibTq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK3sguRWYK0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnfKgffCZ7U