UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON'S
DINNER IN THE
DESERT KITCHEN
PROJECT SCOPE
PROGRAMS USED:
After Effects, Cinema4D, Photoshop, Unity
SKILLS:
Environmental Design, 3D Animation, Augmented Reality Formatting, Project Management
INSPIRATION:
Historic Redlining Maps, Augmented Reality Interactive Galleries, Solar Systems
PROCESS:
I met with food scarcity organizations to best understand the history of redlining in Dayton, Ohio. I presented my findings to members of my team and discussed how to visually portray communities across the globe affected by redlining for our event design.
I designed posters, social media visuals, animations, and augmented reality experiences for DDK: an interactive food disparity awareness exhibition, community dinner, and fundraising event for a local charity.
The visuals were featured on Dayton Ohio news channels and University of Dayton campus press pages. The dinner hosted important figures including the mayor of Dayton Ohio and social project workers.
Artist Statement
I made a deliberate choice to incorporate historic redlining maps as a backdrop for our discourse on present and future prospects within the city of Dayton Ohio. The indelible legacy of redlining is widely acknowledged, yet the extent of this and other systemic racist practices remained largely unfamiliar to many of my fellow students at the commencement of our exhibition's development. As I delved into this historical narrative, I embarked on a journey of self-awareness, recognizing my own privileges and embracing the intricate intersections of class, race, and culture that compose both our campus and our larger community.
In translating this newfound awareness into tangible action, I have been unwavering in confronting the tangible manifestations of past oppressions and prevailing white supremacy, which persistently influences our contemporary campus milieu and our individual roles as students, educators, and civic participants.
Certain elements of our designs and artworks may evoke strong emotional responses among those impacted by the history of redlining and the ongoing systemic injustices it has spawned. While our intention is to evoke a confrontational response, I also proffer our work as a catalyst that stimulates constructive and all-encompassing discourse and learning pertaining to the way forward. Thus far, our discourse has encompassed a critical evaluation of ourselves and our institutions as we diligently scrutinize the contributions of individuals and collectives in upholding systems of power rooted in oppression. This introspective dialogue, however, is imbued with optimism, as we applaud existing avenues for impactful social transformation and foster connections with both our academic environment and community collaborators who are ardently advocating for extensive overhauls in programs, policies, and practices throughout our city and our nation.
"Dinner in the Desert Kitchen" represents a modest yet meaningful episode within a sweeping movement involving a diverse collective of individuals across Dayton. We were acutely cognizant that our event alone could not single-handedly dismantle the deeply entrenched injustices brought about by redlining and analogous detrimental practices. Nonetheless, we persist in employing our exhibition as an inaugural step towards enacting education, heightening awareness, nurturing nascent alliances, and upholding preexisting ones. In this pursuit of active unity, we have elected food as a medium for fostering connectivity, the table as a conduit for dialogue, and socially-engaged art as a mechanism for nurturing comprehension. Our conviction rests in the belief that comprehension serves as a cornerstone for effectual and all-embracing societal transformation.
The main visual strategy for the dinner derived from the concept that every map, every redlining region, represents its own world, under the structure of racism. I used After Effects to create the various map planets, and Photoshop and InDesign for the typography and compositional elements.
DDK Poster
All 5 maps were augmented reality enabled through Artivive. The audience was able to learn more information of each region's history of redlining and health issues through the use of this tool.