Co-creation for activism
This is a 3-min talk about my fellowship work that I gave at Ford Foundation in NYC in May 2019 – since September 2018 I had been hosted by Creative Commons as a Mozilla Fellow, which is funded by Ford Foundation – so this serves as a final report in a way.
Contents
Formats
Links & Credits
Video
Slides & Text
Illustration is a wonderful medium to tell stories, or spark the imagination.
Rather than just showing what exists, you can communicate the better future you’re working towards.
…creating effective campaign images is often expensive and time-consuming for small NGOs or community groups.
and ubiquitous stock images or generic icons aren’t always representative or relevant to the audience.
An image is the perfect way to communicate…
… a mood.
But unlike text or data – which can be restyled, updated, or translated – images tend to be pretty inflexible.
As a viewer, seeing yourself reflected in campaign imagery can be very powerful.
but by default, an image will reflect the biases and perspectives of the creator.
No image is neutral, and if you’re excluded, you notice.
So there are a number of challenges facing any organisation who wants to create engaging and focused illustration for their campaigns.
I think there’s a huge opportunity in opening up the process of creating images to a much wider range of people, and also making customization as easy as possible.
That way activists are able to visually localise their campaign message and put themselves in the picture.
The web provides us the tools to do this – co-creating images in the browser could be as creative as a jam session, or as productive as hacking on a google doc.
In my work with Creative Commons, I’ve been developing an online tool l which enables their local chapters to customize simple design templates.
This is just a basic example,
but in fact they can adapt or remix any vector illustration to share their message.
It’s designed to be collaborative, with different ways to participate, allowing a wider range of people into the artistic process than is usually possible.
If you have an international network of people working on similar themes, any chapter could use and build upon work from elsewhere in the network, so you don’t have to create all your own imagery from scratch. This saves time and allows each chapter to focus more on the unique aspects of their particular ‘translation’.
My aim is to enable activist groups around the world to directly change the content of illustrations, to better reflect their community and local needs –
so, a baobab tree in Tanzania could become an oak tree in England.
The White House could become the Casa Rosada, its equivalent in Argentina.
Alongside the digital work, I’ve been running workshops to show people how they can express their goals with visual communication.
These workshops are designed to foster collaboration, where participants get a taste of the thrill you feel when your own work is adapted into a context you might never have imagined.
I’ve also founded an international community of artists who are already using creative commons licenses, who are interested in remix and customization, and keen to share their knowledge with others.
All my work – the workshops, my digital tools, and these images I’ve been showing you are built upon the work of others, remixed, and adapted to my purpose, then shared as commons for others to take further.
This allows me to achieve more, because I don’t have to start from scratch. and by offering activist groups the collaborative tools to express themselves, I’d love to help more people do the same.
Text Version
Illustration is a wonderful medium to tell stories, or spark the imagination.
Illustration: the Wall Street bull being lassoed, or reined in, by multiple ropes, with the word ‘OCCUPY’ in the center.
Rather than just showing what exists, you can communicate the better future you’re working towards.
Illustration: A still frame from the ‘Message from the Future’ video: a hand reaches in from the bottom of the screen, and paints a figure in a scene where young people are working together on environmental cleanup
But… creating effective campaign images is often expensive and time-consuming for small NGOs or community groups, and ubiquitous stock images or generic icons aren’t always representative or relevant to the audience.
An image is a great way to communicate a mood.
But unlike text or data – which can be restyled, updated, or translated – images tend to be pretty inflexible.
As a viewer, seeing yourself reflected in campaign imagery can be very powerful.
Illustration: an oval mirror, facing the viewer
But by default, an image will reflect the biases and perspectives of the creator.
A sequence of 3 illustrations:
- a client and an illustrator are planning an image containing 4 people.
- The illustrator has drawn all of the people to look exactly like the client and the illustrator – the client is very happy with it.
- This image is used in a poster promoting ‘diversity’
No image is neutral, and if you’re excluded, you notice.
Challenges
So there are a number of challenges facing any organisation who wants to create engaging and focused illustration for their campaigns:
- Resources
- Relevance
- Flexibility
- Representation’
I think there’s a huge opportunity in opening up the process of creating images to a much wider range of people, and also making customization as easy as possible.
That way activists are able to visually localise their campaign message and put themselves in the picture.
The web provides us the tools to do this: online collaboration, and vector graphic images. Co-creating images in the browser could be as creative as a jam session, or as productive as hacking on a google doc.
My Work
In my work with Creative Commons, I’ve been developing an online tool l which enables their local chapters to customize simple design templates:
Description: The tool features a gallery of heart-shaped Creative Commons motifs, featuring different national flags – a CC network member from Chile can select a design which features horizontal stripes, such as the Ecuadorean flag. They can then delete unnecesary shapes, change the colors to fit their own flag, add a dark blue rectangle and a white star, and move or resize shapes to create a Chilean Creative Commons motif. This can then be downloaded and used in stickers, web imagery, buttons, and more.
This is just a basic example, but in fact they can adapt or remix any vector illustration to share their message.
It’s designed to be collaborative, with different ways to participate, such as adding comments, replacing elements or making suggestions, allowing a wider range of people into the artistic process than is usually possible.
If you have an international network of people working on similar themes, any chapter could use and build upon work from elsewhere in the network, so you don’t have to create all your own imagery from scratch. This saves time and allows each chapter to focus more on the unique aspects of their particular ‘translation’.
My aim is to enable activist groups around the world to directly change the content of illustrations, to better reflect their community and local needs – so, a baobab tree in Tanzania could be swapped out for an oak tree in England.
The White House could become the Casa Rosada, its equivalent in Argentina.
Sequence of 2 illustrations:
An image of protestors in front of and on top of the White House in the USA. They have hung a banner saying ‘Climate Justice’ on the building. On the next image, the building has been replaced with the Casa Rosada in Argentina, the banner says ‘Justicia Climática’ and the positions of the activists have been adjusted to fit.
Workshops
Alongside the digital work, I’ve been running workshops to show people how they can express their goals with visual communication.
These workshops are designed to foster collaboration, where participants get a taste of the thrill you feel when your own work is adapted into a context you might never have imagined.
CC-Create
I’ve also founded an international community of artists who are already using creative commons licenses, who are interested in remix and customization, and keen to share their knowledge with others.
Building (on the) commons
All my work – the workshops, my digital tools, and these images I’ve been showing you are built upon the work of others, remixed, and adapted to my purpose, then shared as commons for others to take further.
This allows me to achieve more, because I don’t have to start from scratch. and by offering activist groups the collaborative tools to express themselves, I’d love to help more people do the same.
Credits:
Links:
Mozilla Fellowships: foundation.mozilla.org/en/fellowships
CC-Buttons tool: cc-buttons.hashbase.io / gitlab.com/cameralibre/cc-buttons
Work-in-progress – new multi-purpose version of tool: gitlab.com/cameralibre/svg-jam/-/boards
CC-Create artist community: discourse-dev.labs.creativecommons.org
More reading on representation & diversity in illustration: gitlab.com/cameralibre/mozilla-fellowship/blob/master/Representation-and-Diversity-in-Illustration.md
Credits:
Based on works under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY)
Humaaans by Pablo Stanley, and images from The Noun Project:
Bill – Danil Polshin
Baobab – Olena Panasovska
Pointing – Jeff Portaro
Camera – Pedrovisc
Oak Tree – Sigra
Image – Noura Mbarki
Cobweb – Kemesh Maharjan
Computer – Yorimar Campos
Revolution Fist – Jarem Frye
Cobweb – Maria Zamchy
Glasses – Danny Lelieveld
Theatre – b farias
Loudhailer – HeadsOfBirds
Guitar – Ainsley Wagoner
Bear – aurora rubio alonso
Grumpy Cat – Arancha R
Upload – David Glöckler
Pen – Zlatko Najdenovski
CC-BY-SA Sam Muirhead & Judith Carnaby
Editable Source Files: is.gd/fordfellows