In 2018, there was an open manifesto against the lack of diversity in the design industry. It was triggered designer Catherine Griffins’s poster, which flagged that in the 20 years of ‘The Best Awards’, 40 of 43 Black Pin recipients (a major design recognition in New Zealand) had been men and only 3 women.
A collective of designers and artists (including myself) manifested outside the award ceremony to speak up about these issues. We were not only protesting the lack of representation in gender, but also diversity of race and ethnicity (MÄori as native of this land), non-binary, and physical abilities.
I had attended the Best Award ceremony a year before and felt uncomfortable and out of place—especially as an ‘ethnic brown woman’. It made me realise that many of my students would likely feel the same way due to the lack of representation where our non-Western experiences are neither present nor considered.
Industry
