What are people’s cultural references, and how can these be used to create a visual system for a cultural identity?

“Why are stories such an important part of who we are as a species and how we view the world? Over time, storytelling became a way of passing on religious beliefs and rituals, of telling the history of a people, to speak about their culture, and to educate the next generation.” -Anne Pellowski

Behind Narrative Identities
Narrative Identities aims to raise questions about personal identity and specifically cultural identity in a world where globalisation is on the increase and her people are becoming more integrated than ever before. Answering the question of “Who am I?” is therefore becoming increasingly difficult for some people to answer. Cultures are meeting, exchanging and morphing.

Narrative Identities is a web based system active during enrollment that will allow new students at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design to iconically visualise their cultural varieties, instead of having to choose a limited representation.

For more information see nadiatroeman.com


The globalised world (space) is exerting a perception (interaction force) onto the students (participants) who are using Narrative Identities as a tool (thing) to identify themselves.

Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “My ideal ecosystem is a commission by a receptive client, for a tool that has high adaptability functions to suit an heterogeneous mix of global students, with in built expandability in order to fulfill a modest budget.”

Narrative Ecology: What are the strengths in your ecosystem?
Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “Central Saint Martins has enrollment from students from all over the world, this ensures the diversity of iconography. The ‘Narrative Identities” system is mandatory for enrollment, ensuring an ongoing lifespan, while the iconography is visually legible and can be decoded, allowing secondary participant involvement. Finally, the ‘Narrative Identities” system is a dynamic one, which can adjusts it’s questionnaire format to the student’s needs and desires.”

Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “This is a scenario building forecast of the global perception of cultural identity amongst 20-35 year olds between 2000 and 2020.”

Narrative Ecology: Does your project have an ongoing life?
Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “Narrative Identities depends on the students. As long as there is a constant stream of students, the project can continue.”

Narrative Ecology: How has it been set up so that it has potential to grow?
Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “The most important factor for ‘Narrative Identities’ is it’s ability to adapt overtime, so while I am factoring micro-changes such as the constant flow of students, I am also looking at macro-changes such as the perception of cultural identity over time.”

ACTOR STORIES.

Narrative Ecology: How did you use your actor stories?
Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “I wrote four actor stories from the student perspective to verbally illustrate the enrollment experience from beginning to end; the use of the form, acceptance and experience of the new system and understanding the visuals. I wanted to examine this experience through the eyes of four different characters from four very different cultural backgrounds. Each has their own background story and cultural experiences so each has a different viewpoint about themselves and a different reaction to representation.”

Narrative Ecology: In what way did the actor stories enable communication?
Nadia Troeman (Narrative Identities) “The actor stories are used as an introduction to ‘Narrative Identities’. As stories they are able to talk about the problems with cultural categorisation, perception, and representation.

The use of actor stories allowed me to project a solution to these problems and to forecast a positive outcome, of using ‘Narrative Identities’ to visualise your own identity.”

ACTOR STORIES: Persona script example.

Maria
Hola, My name is Maria and I grew up in Brazil. I lived in different places over there and all were great. You should go to there, we are all a bunch of crAZY people! However due to this crazy label we created for ourselves and that others helped to create, I might add, being categorized as ‘Brazilian’ isn’t always a good thing in my opinion. It can have a negative sound to it and I feel it doesn’t describe me at all. Although I am somewhat loud and outgoing and a complete party animal from time to time and not to forget… Brazilian! (laugh) So yes, I sometimes feel very reluctant to say where I’m from, I am who I am and if they want to have specifics then I usually I say that I’m from Sao Paulo. Not that that’s actually true, but then I don’t have to explain so much, since people usually don’t know where Recife is located.

That’s why I could completely relate to this new project they created for the enrollment experience at Central Saint Martins. Usually when you apply somewhere you have a ton of paperwork you have to fill in, but, and this I found out later, all your data, like name, nationality, phone numbers and everything was saved on a personal profile page they made for you and you could add information on there if necessary. Making it digital was a great move by the way. I’m all for environmental awareness so the less paper used, the better.

On your profile page there was also a section where you could express who you are culturally. As soon as you filled in an answer you saw an image appear on your screen, the more answers you filled in, the more images were added. Resulting in the end with you having had created your own image where all your different cultural layers were visualized. It tackled the problem like I described earlier, of being categorized as only one thing. Of course there is more to a person then this visual could ever describe, but in the end you just need to get to know a person for that anyway. This did, however, show the times we live in….

Jason.
My name is Jason. I’m originally from South Africa but I grew up in several places in the UK, so I consider myself pretty English actually.
I have been living in London for a while now. I Worked in an interior design company for a few years after I got my Degree, but I had decided I wanted to go back to Uni and I applied for a course at CSM. I must say that the way enrollment works nowadays has certainly changed in a few years time, for the better, I might add. It’s all digital now and you have a lot more freedom of how you want others to see you. However you do need to fill in even more questions but I guess in the end it served it’s purpose. It’s no more box-ticking-old-school-methods, since I used to only be able to fill in ‘white’ in the section ethnicity and it made me sounds so boring and I don’t think it did me any justice. Anyway.

The filling in who you are on your new profile wasn’t that bad. Actually answering the questions and thinking about them served to be more interesting then I initially thought. There was also the option of adding friends to your image. I guess you could describe it as a social network for Uni students. When I entered Uni on our first day there were these visuals that guided you through the hallway like an exhibition. It also served as a way-finding system of some sort that illustrated and mapped the universities identity and the students. It was actually pretty cool. And I was able to recognize the elements from the ones of the enrollment form. At the entrance you were welcomed with the new universities identity and as you walked through the hallway the visuals became more personal. In G12 there was an interactive screen where you could see everyone’s visuals. Later, I checked the Universities website where you were able to decode people’s personal images. This was only possible after enrollment which was quite a clever idea and it was very interesting to see what everybody had filled in.

See here for a more detailed explanation on how to write Actor Stories.