Step back and making prints again

I felt stuck at the idea of the slur database. I was having issues to find ways to unpack all the emotions and messages through a single sheet of compiled information. And I realized that I have been focusing on the slurs this entire time, but slurs are just one type of language that was used to discriminate people. Why not step back and look at language over all and other ways of expression that does the same thing?

It seems like a clever and sneaky way of getting the message out there, but it aim to do the same as racial slurs, to reject, marginalize and discriminate the targeted group. Who else is better than Donald Trump to do just that. So I looked into Donald Trump’s vocabulary, particularly the ones that he used to address the issues at the US-Mexico border. And I found that even though the individual words are not as offensive as racial slurs, but together, they portrait certain pictures and project the same content on the group of people who are targeted and discriminate against.

Since our group manifesto has a focus on education, it made me thought about how we use flash cards to teach children Alphabets and the word we choose to put on the card are the first set of vocabulary they are going to learn and use to describe what they see in this world.

So I started writing down the alphabets and putting words next to the alphabets based on the first letter of the word, like creating a set of flash card. Even though I failed to find words for all the letters, I discovered something very interesting. These word formed certain relations and together they created a narrative that project on a particular group of people. And it is effective how it works and terrifying how well it works. When used with masterful skills, it can be very destructive.

In terms of visualization, I experimented with printmaking. Since the size of the print press set a limitation on how big I can go with the print. I only selected A-E to make a print. I would like to print the whole alphabet on large canvas if I had more time.

Then I just get really sad when I think about if this is the set of vocabulary that we will be teaching our children. And these are the words children at the borders familiar with at the moment. So I decide to create another set of words to counter the negativity from it. And they are meant to respond to one another. Which set of vocabulary do we want our children to learn?