"IAS students develop their ability to live and work within and across diverse communities composed of multiple intersecting identities. Learning from the lived experiences, creative expressions and intellectual perspectives of historically-marginalized groups, students recognize and name historical and cultural relationships between power, knowledge, and difference. They develop the confidence and skills needed to transform unequal relations of power ethically and self-reflexively in order to foster greater equity."
- University of Washington, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Learning about diversity and equality means to learn about people and cultures apart from your own. To display this learning objective, I chose two very different artifacts. The first piece I chose was a creative work that was assigned as a final project for Women’s Lives in Context. Over the course of the quarter we learned about the historic difficulties faced by women in US society, particularly those suffered by women of color. We covered all sorts of issues, from societal pressures to be “pretty” to political expressions. I chose to visualize my learning in this class by designing and fabricating a cross-stitch piece based on the book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, aided by the visualizations provided by the recent television show. I specifically chose the wording, which is a prominent message in the source material, to look a type of contradiction of itself. The Latin text is in a very traditional and masculine type script, while “Bitches” is boldly colored and more feminine in style. I chose to make it in cross-stitch specifically because it is a traditionally feminine art form, and the piece is meant to be a commentary on women’s reproductive rights. The second artifact I have chosen is from a recent study abroad in Tokyo. We were tasked with researching aspects of Japanese culture that contributed to Japanese national identity and narrative in any way we chose. I was fascinated with the pop culture phenomenon of animal cafes and I spent quite a lot of my time in Tokyo researching animal cafes firsthand. I found several that were less than ideal conditions for animals and many that were commoditizing experiences with exotic animals, and I wanted to understand how attitudes on animal welfare differed in Japan from the US. After completing my research I found that, in Japan, the needs and welfare of animals is secondary to human wishes and desires. |