False: Women must wear traditional garments. Men don’t have to.

One thing I realized that we didn’t focus on in our project was the fact that men and women wear similar garments. The men wear the long white ropes and head coverings. The reason I bring this up is because I was made aware of another misperception people have here in the US about the Middle East. It was over dinner and I was discussing with friends what I had learned about Islamic culture while visiting Dubai. My friend says to me that her issue and reason why she has a problem with the women wearing the traditional garments is because the men do not have to do the same. When I realized that this was her impression, I quickly stated that this wasn’t the case. I said that both genders wear similar garments, they just happen to be different colors and it really all depends upon the place and the person. I think this issue is at the core of the idea that all muslim women in the Middle East are oppressed by the men. It seems so obvious now that people might think that the men didn’t have to do the same. Now that I am aware of it, I will be able to make a strong argument against this false impression.

Video at Digg

http://digg.com/people/I_AM_FREE_CAMPAIGN

Google Video

Here is the video on google: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7159915136869427734&hl=en

Stickers

T-shirts

    

Front & Back of Strong T-Shirt. Ideally the t-shirts would be black with white type.

The youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtxbhopkts

I AM

Two Posters

 

We wanted our poster to mimic the the dual conversation we have in our video. By having these posters visual join together we are able to tell this story of two cultures joining as one. Before dividing the poster, it composition was conflicting with the type, each battling for attention. The two posters resolves this friction.

Poster Design

Building Cultural Connections Through Design

Zayed University & MICA Summer Design Program 2008

Design in the Connected World: Building Cultural Connections Through Design

Faculty: Dr. Nanci Takeyama, Bernard Canniffe, Peter Chomowicz

 

Project Description: Baltimore and Dubai are both cities that were established mainly because of their access to the ocean and sea. The water connected them to a greater world outside their landlocked borders as the ships imported and exported cultural diversity and understanding as well as trade. One could argue that the coastal highways became early vehicles of conducting the flow of information; the building blocks of what would become the worldwide web. East and West, and North and South are becoming less significant as we embrace the global economy yet as we embrace a vastly changing and complex market place we run the risk of moving further and further apart. We are breaking down so many barriers and at the same time we are building so many walls. Art and Design have never been so important to understanding these paradoxically different socioeconomic shifts, and art and design education has a pivotal role to identify, translate and connect these cultural chasms. 

This course is based on bridging cultural differences through design. Develop design processes and methodologies through cross-cultural experiences in search and promotion of one’s own cultural identity. 

 

Background: This course will explore our collective understanding of what it means by the term “Globalize” as it is applied to economy, culture, and world. We will look at and discuss the role of the media and socioeconomic structures that factor into cultural significance. We will discuss how tensions arise between cultures and how these fractious situations might be prevented. 

The USA and The Middle East have similar and also different world views and cultural beliefs. Each of you comes from different countries, cultures and political, social and religious backgrounds that inform and shape your understanding. Prejudice, bigotry and stereotypes are at the local and international level and they always lead to one group being marginalized and misunderstood. Can design play a role in building cultural bridges and preventing myopic views from occurring?

Purpose: The main purpose of this course is to focus on cross-cultural experiences. Looking positively at different ways of thinking, build upon the differences.