Explorar y Comprender Mi Identidad Cultural y Mis Antecedentes
Artist Statement:
I’ve never been to Mexico, but I wanted to explore and get a better understanding of my cultural identity & background. I choose this topic for a few reasons. First, despite living in a Mexican household, speaking Spanish, eating lots and lots of Mexican food, and doing some traditions, I felt like I still lacked that connection with where my parents were from, Monterrey, Mexico. My mother lived in the city while my father lived in the countryside. Second, I never had the opportunity to go and visit Mexico. Still, hopefully, one day, that will change, and I will get to visit Mexico, specifically Monterrey. Finally, my third reason is, “How can we or what is one way we can go out and explore our own cultural identity & background?”
I’ve never been to Mexico, but I wanted to explore and get a better understanding of my cultural identity & background. I choose this topic for a few reasons. First, despite living in a Mexican household, speaking Spanish, eating lots and lots of Mexican food, and doing some traditions, I felt like I still lacked that connection with where my parents were from, Monterrey, Mexico. My mother lived in the city while my father lived in the countryside. Second, I never had the opportunity to go and visit Mexico. Still, hopefully, one day, that will change, and I will get to visit Mexico, specifically Monterrey. Finally, my third reason is, “How can we or what is one way we can go out and explore our own cultural identity & background?”
I created a series of four different zines to show and represent my exploration and understanding of my cultural identity & background, all packaged together in a custom-designed box and other custom-designed content. Each zine deals with a different topic. One explores what my father did while living in the countryside. One explores what my mother did while living in the city. One is an interview where I asked my parents about their time living in Monterrey. Lastly, one is a recipe zine of foods my parents ate while in Monterrey and still eat. I wanted to focus more on visuals than words with each zine because I believed approaching it that way could better show off what I wanted to achieve. Overall, I told myself more visuals and fewer words.
How and where I gathered all of my content was very simple. First, I did some surface-level research on Monterrey, like a bit of the history, and collected images of some important places, but that wasn’t enough. It needed to be more specific, so I looked at photos of when my parents were in Monterrey, focusing on selecting images to help me create these zines. Interviews were another method I used. Lastly, I asked my mother to share some of her recipes for the recipe zine.
Project Summary:
In my Senior Studio class, I pick any topic I want to explore, research, and create something that either differs from or adds more to what already exists to be displayed at the Graphic Design Senior Exhibition.
Process:
Deciding what topic I wanted to explore:
I chose something with personal meaning when deciding what topic to explore for my senior project. That's why I decided to take this opportunity to have my senior project be about exploring and better understanding my cultural identity and background. I could visually display that exploring and understanding while also having it serve as inspiration for those figuring out how they could go out and explore their cultural identity and background.
Research:
Initially, when conducting research, I was only doing surface-level research about Monterrey, Mexico. While what I found would help me decide what kinds of images and graphics I may want to use, I needed more and more unique. Since I know that my parents had tons of photos back when they lived in Monterrey, I decided to look through them to decide what photos I wanted to use for my content and discover unknown knowledge I wouldn't have found online. Not only did it stop there, but I eventually interviewed my parents to continue learning more about their time in Monterrey. I also asked my mother to provide recipes for foods that my parents ate growing up. Lastly, I was suggested to look at two books that would massively serve as an influence when determining design decisions, those books being Elle-Humour by Julie Doucet and The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman.
Book-making process:
As I was doing initial research, I had only one idea of how I wanted to present my project, and it was in the form of a zine. At first, I wanted only to have one zine where I would have different sections. Still, when creating the third version of my project, it was suggested that I create multiple zines to split up the content and include more, which I ended up doing. I also had a full idea of how I wanted the size of my zines, how many pages, what kind of paper, and the binding method.
Result:
After creating multiple versions and learning the ups and downs of each version, I present Explorar y Comprender Mi Identidad Cultural y Mis Antecedentes—a series of four zines, all in Spanish, each revolving around a different topic but all relating to my main topic. One zine focuses on one aspect of my father, another on one aspect of my mother, the other two about interviews with my parents, and a recipe zine with original recipes. Along with those zines, I custom-designed a box to package them and other custom-designed content consisting of two custom postcards, a custom sticker, and a flip card that introduced the reader to who I am and what the project is about.
Graphic Design Senior Exhibition:
When preparing for the Graphic Design Senior Exhibition, I wanted my work displayed on a pedestal for people to walk up to and interact with. At first, I wanted only to use one pedestal, but I quickly realized I would need two to allow more breathing room. Along with having everything that I also created a poster that was more compositional and included the different and same elements from each zine and two smaller posters that briefly introduce what Explorar y Comprender Mi Identidad Cultural y Mis Antecedentes, one in Spanish to keep the flow and one in English for those who don’t speak/read Spanish but are still curious about what my project is about.
