Designing a service that addresses a core social impact issue.

Service Design

ux research

interaction Design

in plain sight

2023

Project brief

In Plain Sight is a service designed for my Masters Thesis, for a mission to build social inclusion in the mainstream arts and cultural sector. The service is designed to build social inclusion into the mainstream arts and cultural sector, and support creatives interested in a career in the arts. The service engages new audiences with the viewpoints of marginalised artists and creates a sustainable, collaborative safe space for artistic expression and experimentation through the use of a growing platform, online gallery and scavenger hunts.

timeframe

6 months

industry

Arts & Culture

01 Service research

At its most fundamental level, art offers an experience; primarily, one of viewership, engagement, and aesthetic. However, it also offers the chance to re-evaluate one’s perspective, embrace a new way of seeing or perhaps see something new, by assuming the eyeglass of another. One of the questions that has always lingered in my head has been about why we never see a lot of ethnic minority faces in cultural spaces? When presented with the opportunity to interact with a diaspora of BIPOC creatives during the Serpentine Studios program, I was determined to explore the industry through this lens as much as I could. It was through the Serpentine Studios program and the gallery that I was introduced to the work of 93 year-old Ghanian photographer, James Barnor, a man who wasn’t represented as an artist until the ripe old age of 79. This raised a lot of questions for me like: When presented with the opportunity to interact with a diaspora of BIPOC creatives during the Serpentine Studios program, I was determined to explore the industry through this lens as much as I could. It was through the Serpentine Studios program and the gallery that I was introduced to the work of 93 year-old Ghanian photographer, James Barnor, a man who wasn’t represented as an artist until the ripe old age of 79. This raised a lot of questions for me.

1

What does the landcape of representation look like for POC artists in the UK?

2

What do such stories mean for emerging and young BIPOC creatives?

3

Is the canon for art in the UK skewed towards a particular ethnicity?

These questions would form the basis for my research, experiments and for my publication. If you would like to have a detailed look into my research and work process, you can find my notes here. Months of research allowed me to understand what the canon of British Art looked like, how BIPOC people were being represented, and what my HMW statement would be.‍

How Might We help emerging artists engage with the artistic world and provide them with a sense of community and progression?

From my Service Research, which can be found in the appendix, I was able to work towards discussion guides for my interviews for my target audience, and my final Publication. My research led me to believe that my target audience would be BIPOC emerging artists between the ages of 19-25. Additionally, I decided to interview the Serpentine Gallery and a youth agency as well, as they spearheaded the execution of the Serpentine Studios Program. The Publication has been uploaded to this page to present all my research in a visual manner, as opposed to including notes and braindumps.

03 The Publication

04 designing the service

BIPOC people in the arts began to gain quite a lot of attention in the past few decades, but despite the growing recognition of ethnic inequalities in the creative sector, artists of colour are just not represented that well in pubic museums and galleries. There's been plethora of research done about this topic, despite public institutions reluctance to hand over their data on representation. For example, Dr Anjalie Clayton found that very little amounts of BIPOC artwork is part of public institutions permanent collections, most of which isn't on display.

I wanted to design In Plain Sight to unite, educate and support communities. To do that, I needed to make sure that the artists we represented and the information we distributed would be representative of the population. The service would have to make sure that young POC people saw themselves represented in the art world, and artists would be able to form their own support networks without waiting for a green light from the big names! The Design Blueprint showcases the plans for the Service and how it would function.

I decided t take users through the Service by making them aware of the visibility and recognition issues that BIPOC artists face, while we support and empower Artists at the same time. The service is two-faceted and divided into different components. We'll be supporting and representing artists on the platform, while using a new way to bring awareness to the general population, engaging them with a physical+digital exhibition, and helping them realise how they can support BIPOC artists too. Our users would be artists and the general populace interested in the artists world. The platform/service that I've made is divided into these 2 core parts. The Hunt - to bring awareness, The Trail - to make people engage with BIPOC art and make it more accessible to find BIPOC exhibitions

05 wireframes - in plain sight

06.1 the hunt

The Hunt is an aspect of the Service that is designed to make people aware of BIPOC artists history in the British Art Canon. It takes place across 7 locations around London and starts with the Tate Britain, showcasing their exhibition called Sixty Years, An Unfinished Conversation. Ironic that they've held an exhibition about representing unrepresented diaspora, yet most of the artwork of these artists exist in the Tate Archives. We'll also be using educational prompts to make users understand and internalise our research, while giving them specific tasks. The way The Hunt functions is that users will get specific coordinates through our platform. Once users go to these coordinates, they will have to look for our posters, which we've put up through our wild-posting campaign, and then they'll get a task at the museum/gallery nearby. The Hunt ends where The Trail begins. We'll notify users that we've created another curated trail for them to explore, should they wish to discover and empower young and emerging BIPOC artists.

06.2 the trail

The Trail is a curated trail of ongoing BIPOC exhibitions in new spaces around London. These spaces are recommended by Artists on the platform and there is currently no other spaces that provide this service of recommending current BIPOC exhibitions. We'll be taking users to spaces that have a history of empowering and uplifting BIPOC artists. This addresses the Visibility part of the pipeline

06.3 the Mission

The Mission of the service is to dismantle and appropriate the White Cube. By using spaces that were used for inequality and injustice for education, the service is essentially taking over those spaces with our own agenda. Our Mission statement page also includes a list of free resources that artists and creatives can use for their creative journeys, like residencies, support packages and other collectives doing really cool stuff. We want to empower and support BIPOC artists through the use of our-artist curated tours and community. The service will pursue marginalised groups for permanent representation on our platform. Once the service extends to selling artists work, the service will pay them fairly. IPS will represent all mediums and subject matters and make sure that the artists are not pigeonholed. Finally, the service will use the platform to amplify the cause important to us.

07 Presented service & exhibition

For my final Masters’ presentations, I showcased the final design of In Plain Sight. As part of the final exhibition, works such as brochures and posters were produced to activate the city-wide scavenger hunt. The website itself, can be found here.

5 Pillars of In Plain Sight

discovery

To discover and spotlight marginalised creatives and place them atthe centre of our community

diversity

To attract creatives from a variety of backgrounds, mediums andexpertise, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration by providing a safe space totake risks, build relationships and be curious.

collaboration

To create a 'Cultivation Culture' through nurturing an inclusive,diverse and collaborative community that holds collective responsibility to growwith each other, to share knowledge and to advocate for BIPOC creatives in thearts and culture industry.

reinvention

To develop a new normal for BIPOC creatives in the industry byshifting the narrative from their identity and marginalisation, which are often only‘special exhibitions’, to focusing on the stories they want to tell.

advocacy

To embed social inclusion into the heart of our organisation byspotlighting BIPOC artists, advocating for their rightful space in creativeorganisations and encouraging industry gatekeepers to recognise their work.

07.1 posters designed for scavenger hunt

07.2 Brochures designed

07.1 works designed and printed

Assets designed for exhibition

08 The Exhibition - goldsmiths

08 characteristics of in plain sight

+9

artists Represented

+2

Exhibitions across london

8

bIPOC - first galleries on the trail

2

scavenger hunts organised

09 current state of in plain sight

Currently, In Plain Sight exists as an artist’s collective, run by Sanchit Bembi (me), Sophie Hodgetts(Curation) and Anya Parekh(Brand and Identity Design). After going through a hefty brand and identity re-design, we set about drafting a Compendium that we could distribute to potential partners and Artists. In Plain Sight had its maiden exhibition on the 6th of July, at Jim & Tonic’s distillery space. The exhibition review, written by Annabel Schooling, can be read here. In Plain Sight also served as the basis and motivation for my work at the School of Machines, Making and Make-Believe in Berlin. In Plain Sight’s website is also undergoing a transformation, where I’ve re-designed some of the pages, added things like Review Pages in the form of an interactive word search, as well as re-brand some of the core Service aspects. The Search(our re-titled Geocache Hunt) & The Trail are also set to be updated.

09.1 Re-designed website wireframes

09.2 Compedium document for sharing with collaborators

09.3 the exhibition - jim & tonic

appendix - research done

to conclude

Research organised meticulouslywell can help derive insights faster. Throughout the design of the Service, it was important to get feedback at every level so pivots could be applied and good design practices could be adhered to. It was incredible to see a Service I designed collaborating with artists to be implemented, and the viability of the service was proven through the proof of concept exhibtions.

04 characteristics of in plain sight