The first ideas were around making a school campaign about playing together and sharing.
1) An activity to make students see they are all equal. The purpose of this activity would be learning from one another. For instance, make a boy who doesn't know about ballet see how hard this discipline is. They would have to learn as much as they can from each others interests.
This is based on some quotes I've found related to the stereotypes surrounding female athletes.
"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better". Abraham Lincoln. This teaches the lesson that you can't dislike something you don't know about, which is normally the case.
Young students would get in mixed pairs and they'll have one hour to learn from others passions/interests. At the end, everyone gets a note with a positive message of what they are doing: E.G: I think John is very strong for swimming in competitions.
It could have the structure of a game:
- Draw yourself doing your favourite activity.
- Get in pairs.
- Write a small piece of text saying what you admire of that person (this is of course checked by teachers to avoid trolling).
- Prize: Everyone gets to read something nice about them, making them feel more confident and encouraging others to appreciate other people's work.
2) Series of posters for schools of women playing sports to normalise it. Posters of the most famous female athletes to counter-weight mass media with positive messages: Strenght, happiness, dedication. (Words related to them).
Use women as reference for children.
At some point, they'll wonder why they were women. Maybe show males practising a female-dominated sport.
3) Use school furniture for messages. Use the back of a chair to print on an athlete name, messages of how awesome is to be oneself, sports, records set by women, quotes from female athletes...
The problem with this is that the general message can be misunderstood as "women have to achieve something to be heard". The truth is that it happens the same with men, but mass media have them covered.
- Use names of female athletes that have proven being better than men.
This isn't to say women are better than men, but to prove that men are not necessarily physically superior despite what we normally assume. Men might be stronger, faster, etc. But in a professional sport many different features take place.
It's not about competition or who's the best, but about understanding what we are really capable of despite what we are told. Just do it.
Feedback
After having a discussion with the educator and after having this ideas, I had a chat with Simon Jones as the design was most likely to be a poster. This could be a flexible and functional response to the brief, but in terms of creativity there are probably other responses that will engage more with the audience.
In the feedback session where we had to walk around the studio to leave feedback, I left this document on the screen and a piece of paper for the answers. The answers can be found in the submission folder or down below.
This feedback was very useful and gave me some ideas to carry on with the work. Some of the comments suggested to encourage people to interact with the illustrations and place them in uncommon places, like a sports hall. Also, finding a way to link this to social media could better aim to the target audience in mind.
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