Konstfack Visual communication pitch

ACCESS:

Who has access to art spaces?

Who can go to art school?

Who can see themselves visiting and being a future participant of Konstfack's spring exhibition?

The visual identity has a much larger outreach than just with the walls of this old telephone factory. It began as a factory - a place for workers and the working class. How do we create a visual language that reaches the many rather than the few who have the privilege of an artistic education and the tools to read its visual language?

I have always come at design with a DIY approach in hopes to connect and bring together people of different backgrounds, class and minority identities.

I often think of Jack Halberstam’s theory on the queer art of failure. Using failure as a way to queer something, to queer design. I think about using queer as a verb. QUEERING design is trying, testing and exploring to see what sticks and what resonates and that means a lot of failures. I design in a way that is accessible because we are messy, chaotic and imperfect. I wanted the visual language for this pitch to mirror this and not gloss over it as is often done in the visual IG era where we have to strive for perfection. Art schools are a place where we can be free to try, test, fail and learn. I believe the sketchbook, the fails, the pile of scrap papers are where everything comes together. The notes - scribbles, doodles etc are the most interesting.

ACCESSIBILITY:

As a designer with a chronic illness, accessibility is a central theme in my work. Art spaces and especially exhibitions often demand that our sick and crip bodies are forced to stand for too long. Our neurodivergent brains are over-stimulated. I've been thinking about how we can lessen the threshold to enter this space so more visitors can experience the graduating students' work. Not all spaces can be made accessible to everyone but we can provide information to our audience on how to navigate the space and more importantly what to expect. Symbols for accessibility could provide a simplistic way of communicating what to expect within the different areas of the exhibition. This could include but not limited to symbols for loud noise, bright or dark lighting, access to seating etc.