What is it about design? I actually used to shy away from graphic design, actually, more like avoid it all together. It was part feeling like a sell-out for going into “commercial art” versus pursuing fine art and getting work into galleries.
In fact, I always felt like I had to choose! But that is not the case at all.
Last week, I attended the AIGA event “Creating without Borders”, which examined the intercultural work of (list of speakers). Each designer/artist explored how their identity shapes their work, what is the in-between place of the CA-MX–a virtual place that combines two cultures as if you are straddling one leg in CA and one leg in Mexico, and instead of being divided by a physical or metaphorical border, you are free to create an in-between space through your work and exploration.
Their interculturalism did not only show what was possible in their work, but who they were as a creative: straddling different roles between anthropologist, historian, identity designer, fine artist, architect, scientist, researcher, writer, and so on.