Every research project has a story, which is the story of an arrival. For us it was a feeling: diversity is not diverse enough. We hear a lot about a handful of communities while we fear and have prejudices torwards others.
During one of our inflamed discussions, someone asked if our idea of what diversity is could be in any way influenced by what we learn through the media. Inspired by the motto Not about us without us , we decided to focus on Netflix productions and looked at the producers, casts and origins of movies seen as « diverse », to understand how authentic their stories are, and if they involved members of the communities they talk about. Because yes, movies are made to entertain but not only this; they have the capacity to make us empathize with other forms of discrimination as they can help us understand what other people are going through.
Sometimes they also spark debate; making people talk a lot, at their dinner tables, but also on social medias. Exploring people’s reactions to (and comments about) the movies was a way for us to explore where fiction meets reality. But how could we, as graphic designers, try to communicate our findings?
The work of a graphic designer is to support other subject matters by shaping them to deliver a message. You have to convey something to somebody . So we tried, from 3D experiments, memes and posters to show the positive/negative sides of diversity, to strict layout leaving space for the comments we found, giving them room to speak.
In the end, creating posters seemed to us the most efficient way to communicate the question raised by our experimentations as it would create a direct contact with a potential audience.
We did not intend to give our point of view but rather wanted to get people involved.
But the thing is, all research is based on the bias of the researcher so even if we had had the intention of erasing ourselves from the project it wouldn’t have been possible. Therefore, behind all of the questions raised, remained something we wanted to communicate: our experience along with the origin, research, and contribution of this project. And I wrote the story of our arrival.