foreign + foreignness
Biennale Sessions, 6—9 June 2017
Challenge
Create an installation to understand How are current political divisions of land influencing our identities to later design a product with the analysis of the research.
User
Venice Biennale visitors (all public)
My role as a Designer
Design an interactive installation and tools to collect relevant qualitative data.
Sector
Design Research​
Place / year
Venice / Berlin, 2017
Team
Angela Garcia / Florian Knape
Eugene Vasilenka / Juan Useche
strategic design
CONTEXT
On the occasion of the 57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia offers to Universities, Fine Arts Academies, Higher Education Institutions, and Research Centres a special project. After having conducted user research and pre-concept iterations in Berlin, we ran a public design thinking activity in Venice, dealing with aspects of identity, habits, borders and relieving foreignness on the following questions: How are current political divisions of land influencing our identities? A constant exchange of melting cultures allows us to reflect, redefine and overcome our mental borders in order to build a united understanding of the world and its people. We build an interactive installation to reflect on identity by challenging the concept of borders.
THE INSTALLATION AS A RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY
In our interactive installation, we are creating a new experience for the visitors of the Biennale where they participate in creating their own identity through the countries that have contributed to their life so far or countries they are looking to explore in the future. Weather it is their favourite food from Japan, their personal fashion style inspired by French culture or a new language they want to learn these places are a big influence of their identity
DAY 1
Culture and daily habits
1. The place I call home is...
2. I love to eat food from...
3. I have last traveled to...
4. I have relatives living in...
5. The first country I traveled was...
DAY 2
Imaginary states of life
1. If my country wouldn’t exist I would have liked to be born in...
2. In 10 years I will like to live in...
3. Pin a border you will really like to erase...
4. A culture that inspires me is…
5. I will like to learn how to speak…
DAY 3
Exploring stereotypes perspectives
1. The country with funniest fashion style is...
2. Country of your favorite fruit is...
3. The country with your favorite museum is...
4. The country with history you will like to learn... 5. The country with the favorite landscape is...
RESULT BEYOND THE INSTALLATION
One of the key aspects of our success in Venice exhibition was the interaction with the big map. Therefore we decided to keep this feature in our future version. Having this criteria in mind, we saw a lots of possibilities to create a product for the educational sector. Florian, one of the designers of Mapamelt, was able to interact with a couple of kids during our sessions at the Biennale. One of the best feedback we got from them was “Thank god we went here and not the other rooms, this is actually fun”. At this point we realized the potential of our idea and the possibility to implement it in schools as part of educational system.