For FMP I started to mind map the topics I would like to explore and as David also mentioned I should do something maybe that is missing from my portfolio. I know since second year I like working on social design and topics which are interesting to me. However, FMP is all about our brief, every decision is ours and we don’t get a list of outcomes we should produce so in that sense it’s very scary and broad. I need a project which will challenge me as I want to push my comfort zone and not pick something I have done before. I was aiming for a social or cultural project as my starting point was what am I interested in?
Ideation
This is the mind map I created on my interested focused on social cultural and all different types of topics. I also tried to add in topics I never covered before it fits into my portfolio. The main focuses on mostly political and social issues such as identity and gender. But also thought about social media, I know a lot of people usually focus on it as it’s a heavy topic in our society now and there is a lot to cover but I already did my exhibition data collection in year 2 and also RSA brief focused on Twitter so I think i will pass the social media topics. I will discuss in depth below which topics I find the most interesting.
Expectations on women- Last project in Criticality I had this idea of creating a speculative design on expectations on women, I believe in a capitalist patriachal society I felt like there are a lot of expectations on women to fulfil. This starts frm family life, the women making the home, also expected to have kids before shes 30 but also work and have a career. There are different levels of expectations on all areas of life and I think this is overwhelming. Women have to make decisions about their life choices depending on what the societies rules or expectations are. I don’t think I have ever focused on fully gender implications in graphic design, I think this could be quite interesting as well. The way women designers are under the shadow and they don’t get the spot light compared to male designers which are the dominators.
Another idea I had was focused on Femicides in Turkey, this is more political and social as it doesn’t really relate to UK society. Turkey has a real issue with Femicides, as I am turkish I deeply connect with this issue and I always follow the news. Turkey has one of the highest Femicides in the world and these issues will not be solved as the government doesn’t find it important enough. I have a deep knowledge on this topic as I follow Turkish politics closely and so does people in my house. I believe for this project maybe I could create a campaign which empowers and challenges the gender roles in Turkey. From this idea, I thought about traditional roles for women and men in Turkey, they are very out dated and as most poarts of turkey is very modern there is still deep rooted sexism in all areas in Turkey. This is because it is a very male dominated society with high percentage of MPs being male and under representation of women in politics. I believe this is a very heavy topic to work on as my final major project but I know I could create some powerful outcomes. This is an idea I would be passionate working on.
The other idea I had was I thought about this while growing up sometimes as I moved to UK when I was 8, at some points in my life I found it really challenging growing up in two different cultures. This is because at home we would be traditional Turkish family but the outside world, school, social life I would be living in British culture. I feel like topics such as home, belonging and culture are really topics I enjoy working on and I’m very interested in. Today we have been asked to write couple of sentence on Moodle about our idea for FMP, I feel like this topic is very broad and it can be developed in so many ways. It is very personal to me and focuses on my experience and immigration in many ways. I think this idea has huge potential and it brings together everything I enjoyed working on before.
5pm deadline
Stuck between two cultures – an exploration of growing up in two different cultures and belonging, how it has influences on shaping identity.
Busra Yildiz 