My Introduction to Intercultural Studies
CIM416 is about stepping out of what feels familiar and looking at culture from new angles. It asks uncomfortable questions about belonging, difference, and influence — things that often sit quietly in the background of creative work but shape how it’s received and understood.
Through this unit, I want to challenge my own assumptions about culture and identity, and become more conscious of how I represent stories that are not my own. I want to understand where admiration ends and appropriation begins, and how to approach other cultures with respect while still engaging creatively with them.
Throughout these reflections I’ll be drawing on two projects that sit at the centre of my practice right now: Navigating Hope and ZaZa’s Legacy. They give me concrete, real-world spaces to explore how intercultural sensitivity, trauma-informed communication, and storytelling play out in practice.
Navigating Hope: A trauma-informed mobile tool I designed to help people in crisis quickly find food, shelter, health care and local support. It focuses on clear language, low cognitive load and predictable navigation so it feels safe and usable for people under stress.
ZaZa’s Legacy: A community organisation dedicated to choking prevention and awareness, founded in memory of Zaire “ZaZa” Bwoga. As Design & Marketing Director, I work on trauma-informed communication and visuals that honour families, raise awareness, and build safer communities.
By weaving insights from these projects into my learning here, I hope to become more reflective, more sensitive to cultural nuance, and better at shaping creative work that holds both empathy and responsibility at its core.
AI Use DeclarationChatGPT was used to spell-check, format, and identify errors in this document. Images created with ChatGPT are cited in the image captions.
Week 1 — A Discourse Approach
Drawing on Scollon, Scollon, and Jones, I read identity as overlapping discourse systems; the same small details of everyday life double as practices that position us socially and shape how we act, speak, and design (Scollon et al., 2012).
I have always believed that who we are is revealed in the small details of how we live, and this week’s reading helped me recognise that these details are also part of larger discourses that shape our lives and identities. Scollon, Scollon, and Jones (2012) describe discourse systems as “ways of representing the world, ways of talking about it, and often also ways of acting in it” (p. 2). Looking at my own life, I can see how each part of me — motherhood, class, art, spirituality, nature, and grassroots work — belongs to a network of discourses that guide the way I see the world.
Being a mum is at the centre of who I am. Motherhood has changed how I view almost everything. It has made me more patient, more resilient, and more conscious of the bigger picture. I often think about what kind of world my children will grow up in and how I can shape my choices to make that world kinder. Scollon et al. (2012) describe culture as a set of rules or habits that guide how people live (p. 3). Motherhood has become one of those systems for me. It shapes my behaviour and reminds me of what matters most.
Growing up working-class has also left a strong mark on me. It made me aware of inequality early and gave me a sense of responsibility to notice who is being left out. At one point I thought fairness was the same for everyone, but I now see that perspective is shaped by privilege. Privilege is often invisible to those who hold it (Project Humanities, n.d.). I know what it feels like to be on the margins, yet I also recognise that I have had access to education and creative practice that others may not. Holding both truths is uncomfortable, and it forces deeper reflection on fairness and the responsibilities that come with my position.
I feel at home in grassroots work and activism because it reflects values I carry — care, fairness, and collective responsibility. Design and business aren’t separate from that; they’re tools I use to create impact and bring people together. Scollon et al. (2012) also frame culture as traditions carried forward and adapted over time (p. 3). That speaks to how I see grassroots work. It takes traditions of community care and resilience, honours where they came from, and reshapes them to meet the challenges of today. My involvement feels like a continuation of those cultural traditions, expressed through how I design, organise, and create.
Art is another outlet that feels essential. Painting and photography help me process the world. I don’t create to chase perfection but to capture a moment or feeling that words can’t always hold. Scollon et al. (2012) note that some people locate culture in galleries and books, while others locate it in the lives of ordinary people (p. 3). My art sits between these views. It grows out of everyday life and connects to wider conversations about creativity and storytelling.
Spirituality, for me, isn’t tied to religion so much as balance and reflection. As part of this, I use Human Design as a light-touch self-awareness framework to check my energy and decision patterns. I don’t follow it strictly; I pair it with journaling and lived experience to listen to my intuition and make choices that feel true to who I am. Together, these practices form a personal set of values that keep me grounded when life is loud.
Nature has always been a grounding force. I feel most like myself around birds, insects, plants, and open spaces. Farm life and gardens remind me of cycles and balance. Being outdoors teaches care and connection that I carry into my work and relationships. That relationship shapes how I live and how I design, often beneath awareness.
When I bring these reflections together, each part of my identity is shaped by overlapping discourses. They’re connected, not separate, and they influence how I live, create, and connect. Scollon et al. (2012) describe culture as a “tool for thinking” (p. 3); this reading helped me use that tool to look at my life more clearly. It reminded me that who I am and what I create can’t be separated, and that both are guided by care, fairness, and connection.
Because of this reading I will now prioritise mapping discourse systems. Seeing who is positioned where and by which practices keeps my methods and visuals accountable.
References
- Project Humanities. (n.d.). White privilege checklist. Arizona State University. https://projecthumanities.asu.edu/white-privilege-checklist
- Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. H. (2012). Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. John Wiley & Sons. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sae/detail.action?docID=7103430
- Webster, L. (2025). Reflective Journal — Week 1 header. JUXTA Design Studio. https://juxtadesignstudio.com/cim416-intercultural-studies
A Short Story Based on Assumption
Seeing Past the Dust by Lana Webster
The sun was hanging low and the flies were thick as a small group of young travellers from South Korea wandered down the main street of a dusty outback town. Heat shimmered off the corrugated tin roofs. They spoke quietly in Korean, glancing at the old weatherboard pub and the red dirt stretching off to nowhere. Near the general store, a few local Aboriginal men sat under a gum tree, having a yarn. Mina whispered, “I’ve read that some communities prefer to stay separate… maybe we shouldn’t bother them.”
Across the road, the men watched the group with a sceptical gaze. “City folk,” Uncle Billy muttered to his nephew Jarran. “Probably just want a quick photo with a roo, then back on the bloody bus.” The others smirked, going back to their quiet chatter, expecting the tourists to drift past like all the others.
But Mina stepped forward, clutching her water bottle. “Excuse me,” she said gently, “Do you know where we can see real Aboriginal art? Not… souvenir shop knock-offs.” For a beat, no one spoke. Then Uncle Billy cracked a grin. “Ah, proper mob stuff, eh? Not the plastic boomerang rubbish they sell across the street. Yeah, my sister paints. It’s real quality stuff. C’mon, I’ll take ya down to the art centre.”
Together they spent the arvo in the cool air-conditioned gallery, surrounded by bold ochre swirls and story-rich canvases. The eager tourists listened wide-eyed as Jarran pointed out the songlines mapped through the colours. They had pictured something old and fading, but found something strong and alive. As the bus pulled up, Mina bowed slightly. “I was wrong,” she said softly. Uncle Billy’s eyes crinkled with a smile. “Reckon I was too, love. Safe travels.”
Week 2 — Reflection on My Intercultural Sensitivity
Bennett’s (1986) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity helps me make sense of how my approach to communication and design has shifted through real experiences. Working with ZaZa’s Legacy, I had to speak about choking prevention and grief in ways that were safe for families, professionals, and the wider community.
At first I wrote from activism, aiming to spark emotion and drive awareness. I believed that because choking is a universal risk, the message would land the same for everyone. That assumption sits in what Bennett calls Minimisation, where difference is downplayed in favour of similarity (1986, p. 184). I was writing from the heart, but I hadn’t considered how lived experience and culture shape how words are heard. For someone grieving a partner, for a parent, or in cultures where direct talk about death is taboo, my language could land very differently.
Feedback was confronting and useful. It showed me that good intent can still harm when context is ignored. That shift moved me into Acceptance — recognising that cultural differences are real, meaningful, and need to be understood on their own terms (Bennett, 1986, p. 184). My way of telling the story wasn’t the only way. Each person brought their own beliefs and emotions to our resources, and those perspectives mattered.
From there I began moving into Adaptation. I slowed down, listened more, and adjusted how I wrote. Bennett defines this as shifting perspective and behaviour through empathy (1986, p. 186). I used trauma-informed language, chose words with more care, and framed messages around prevention, safety, and community strength rather than fear. It felt more aligned with my values because it protected people without retraumatising them.
I met this again in my Week 1 short story. I used the word mob in Aboriginal dialogue and paused. Would it read as insensitive outside its context? That moment showed me how language carries different meanings depending on who hears it. The concern didn’t come from denial. It came from acceptance — recognising that Aboriginal English has expressions that don’t translate cleanly. By keeping the word in Uncle Billy’s voice rather than my narration, I was adapting the choice to reflect cultural perspective more honestly. It reinforced that intercultural sensitivity is less about what you know and more about how you handle the communication process across boundaries.
Looking back, these experiences changed my practice. They made me more aware of how culture, grief, and lived experience shape communication. They also taught me that intent is not enough. Real sensitivity means staying open to feedback, being willing to change, and meeting people where they are. Because of this reading I now begin by mapping the cultural positions around the message, then I choose methods and wording that fit.
References
- Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(86)90005-2
Week 3 · Navigating Hope, Habitus and Intercultural Sensitivity
This week I reflect on habitus and intercultural sensitivity through the lens of my Navigating Hope project. My style of persuasive communication, shaped by years in marketing, needs to shift when the audience is people in crisis. In that space, clarity and safety carry more weight than emotional impact. Using one of my campaign posters as a starting point, I read Bourdieu’s habitus and Bennett’s model as tools to understand the gap between my instincts and what users need. The balance: persuasive storytelling for awareness, calm trauma-informed language for support.
Revisiting this poster brought the tension into focus. It was built to spark empathy by asking people to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes, an approach that works for shifting public perception. But what works in advocacy doesn’t always translate into a tool people turn to in crisis. In the app, persuasive language can add stress. The task is to slow down, choose words that reduce pressure, and build trust.
On the app, the audience is different. Someone in crisis may be opening it to find food, shelter, or urgent care. In that moment, calm clarity beats drama. I want the app to feel safe, not retraumatising.
This clash between my ingrained style and the app’s needs can feel like culture shock. Maton’s explanation of Bourdieu’s habitus helps me see why: my habits formed in a field that values emotional persuasion, while trauma-informed design calls for steadier language. Getting this balance wrong isn’t just a design flaw; it risks adding pressure to people already carrying too much.
I still catch myself reaching for high-impact phrases. In some projects that fits. For Navigating Hope, I pause and choose calmer words, centring safety and clarity while still honouring empathy as a driver of change. It’s a discipline of restraint.
Sometimes the most powerful message is the simplest one. Learning when to step back is reshaping my whole approach to communication.
Looking back to Week 2, Bennett’s model of intercultural sensitivity helps me make sense of this shift (Bennett, 1986). At first I was in Minimisation, assuming my storytelling worked for everyone. Listening moved me into Acceptance, recognising that people in crisis need different language. Now I’m working on Adaptation, shifting my words toward support, trust, and empowerment.
This reading helps me connect habitus with intercultural sensitivity in a way I can use. My habitus pulls me toward emotional storytelling, and Bennett gives me a framework to pause, reflect, and adapt to the person and the context.
As Maton (2014, p. 49) notes, “Habitus is intended to transcend a series of deep-seated dichotomies structuring ways of thinking about the social world.”
I’m treating habitus as layered and flexible rather than fixed. For Navigating Hope, that means I don’t force one voice across everything. I match the voice to the moment.
I sat with the question of redesigning the poster and felt my chest tighten. Do I need to change it? After this week’s reading, I can say no with clarity. The poster is doing the job it was made for: asking the community to see beyond assumptions. The app is where safety and clarity live. Both matter.
I don’t have to hold one voice forever. I’ll use the voice the moment calls for and judge it by one thing: did it help someone take the next step? That’s the habitus I choose.
References
- Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(86)90005-2
- Maton, K. (2014). Habitus. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts (2nd ed., pp. 48–64). Routledge.
- Webster, L. (2024). Navigating Hope: Community campaign poster series [Poster series]. JUXTA Design Studio. https://juxtadesignstudio.com/navigating-hope
Week 4 · Representation and Visibility in Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
This week’s reading by Timothy Kazuo Steains (2018) reminded me how much it matters to see yourself represented. He describes how Crazy Rich Asians finally offered visibility to a community long sidelined. Seeing Asian characters as confident and multidimensional wasn’t just familiar faces on a screen. It was being seen. That’s the point of representation. It isn’t decoration. It’s belonging.
Steains also calls out what the film misses. It centres wealth and status, a slice of life most can’t recognise. Other voices and struggles sit off-stage. I appreciate that he celebrates and critiques in the same breath. Calling something a win for diversity only lands if more than the already powerful get the spotlight (Steains, 2018).
When I think about people like me on screen, it depends on which part of my life I look at. For family, shows like The Middle get close — they show messy, funny love that feels real, but it’s still very American. On Australian TV, I don’t often see families that look or feel like the ones I know. Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters are tidy pictures, not the mix and noise of real life here.
Then there’s Kath and Kim and Housos. Locals read them as satire and laugh at the familiar quirks. Viewed from elsewhere, the joke can harden into a stereotype. That’s the risk in representation. Comedy built on exaggeration can turn into misrepresentation when the context drops away. These shows don’t reflect who I am, but they’re useful reminders of how fast tone can twist meaning.
“Seeing ourselves represented helps shape who we believe we can be.” (Steains, 2018)
The reading nudged me back to basics. Representation isn’t perfection. It’s honesty. It’s a fuller spectrum of funny, flawed, real. Crazy Rich Asians didn’t capture every truth, but it cracked the door open. What we do with that space matters. Representation is a mirror and a promise. It tells us who we are and expands who we can become.
References
- Steains, T. (2018). Crazy Rich Asians is a great moment for representation but slides over some important questions. https://doi.org/10.64628/aa.nwsptghm9
- Chu, J. M. (Director). (2018). Crazy Rich Asians — Official Trailer [Film trailer]. Warner Bros. Pictures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-YX-5bAs0
Week 4 · Representation, Power and Compassion in Design
This week I explored Stuart Hall’s (1997) chapter The Spectacle of the “Other” and found myself reflecting on the quiet power of representation. Hall explains that representation is never neutral; it is shaped by history, culture, and who holds the power to define what is seen (p. 225). His point that we understand ourselves by defining who we are not made me think about how easily design can draw those same boundaries without meaning to. It is confronting to realise that the stories we tell can either divide or heal.
Hall describes how difference is built through opposites like civilised and primitive, us and them. These opposites create meaning but never equality. One is always seen as normal, the other as its shadow (p. 229). It made me aware that every design choice carries responsibility. Representation is not just about showing faces; it is about how those faces are framed, who gets to be visible, and who is left unseen.
This became personal during a project where I had to quickly produce a low-fidelity prototype of a design. I turned to ChatGPT to generate a few placeholder images that showed homelessness across different groups: mothers, fathers, elders, people with disabilities, and Aboriginal people. The tool refused. It suggested that I generate an image using Aboriginal art instead. That felt wrong. Using AI-generated Aboriginal art would have been culturally inappropriate because it would mean borrowing from sacred designs and traditions that are not mine to use. It would turn something deeply meaningful into decoration, which is exactly the kind of cultural harm Hall warns against (p. 231).
I explained that leaving Aboriginal people out altogether would be just as harmful. It would erase the truth of who is most affected by homelessness in Australia. What began as a technical issue became an ethical one. After we talked it through, we found a way to create the image I had in mind, one that included Aboriginal faces respectfully and truthfully. Seeing that final image felt right. It honoured Aboriginal people not by borrowing from their culture, but by acknowledging their presence and humanity within the story of this country’s crisis. That is what representation should do.
“Representation engages feelings, attitudes and emotions; it mobilizes fears and anxieties in the viewer.” (Hall, 1997, p. 226)
That moment taught me more than any reading could. It showed me that representation is not only about inclusion; it is about integrity. It is about showing people as they are, not how we imagine them to be. When Hall writes that the “Other” is part of how we understand ourselves (p. 235), I see that reflected in this experience. It reminded me that representation is how we close the gap between understanding and compassion. It is not something we do for people; it is something we do with them.
Hall’s warning that positive imagery is not enough still rings in my head (p. 240). You cannot fix inequality by just flipping a stereotype. Real change comes from rewriting the language itself. For me, that means designing work that recognises people as whole, complex and deserving of dignity. Every story, every visual, every message we create holds the power to include or exclude. Hall’s work, and this experience alongside it, reminded me that design at its best is an act of respect, a way to see people clearly and to help others do the same.
Reference
- Hall, S. (1997). The Spectacle of the “Other.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (pp. 223–290). London: SAGE Publications. https://seminar580.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/hall-the-spectacle-of-the-other-pdf.pdf
Week 4 · Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory
Watching Cheyenne’s video on Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory left me thinking about how fragile truth can be once it passes through the lens of media. The idea that representation doesn’t just show reality but builds it feels heavy and real. It makes sense that the way something is told can become more powerful than what actually happened.
The perfume ad example stayed with me. It shows how meaning is created out of suggestion. We aren’t sold the scent; we’re sold a story. The setting, the faces, the movement all tell us what kind of person we might be if we owned that product. It’s strange how easily we connect to that kind of storytelling, how we fill in the gaps ourselves, and start believing in a version of life that might never exist.
What I found most interesting was the idea that media doesn’t reflect life, it interprets it. Once something is represented, it becomes a new version of truth. That thought feels important. It explains why certain groups or stories can be misunderstood or flattened, and how that misunderstanding spreads until it feels normal.
The part about the internet changing how we respond brought a sense of balance. Meaning isn’t one-sided anymore. People can speak back, question what they see, and shift the story. It’s messy and imperfect, but it gives space for more voices and more honesty.
“Representation isn’t just about visibility; it’s about meaning. It shows what a culture values and what it ignores.” (Cheyenne, 2023)
Watching this video reminded me that every story we put into the world has the power to shape how people think and feel. Meaning isn’t fixed, and that’s both the risk and the opportunity in how we tell it.
References
- Cheyenne. (2023). Stuart Hall Representation Theory Explained – This Is Why Representation Theory Matters [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEjmZ_GQq_8
- Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage Publications.
Week 4 · Framework of Otherness
This week’s video, Framework of Otherness by Jonell Logan (2016), spoke about how easily people can be made to feel separate. She shared a story about a man at a museum who told her, “You must be really excited to see your culture represented here.” He meant well, but his words still carried distance. It showed how even in places meant for learning and inclusion, people can still be made to feel like they do not fully belong.
Logan talked about the “master narrative,” the idea that history is often told from one perspective. Museums, she said, have the power to shape what people believe, and that means they also have the power to change it. I found that powerful. It made me think about how the stories we tell can either separate people or bring them together.
“It is not enough to just show; who are you supporting financially, what narratives are you putting together, who are we defining as other, and how do we break that framework?” (Logan, 2016)
Her message felt hopeful. She asked us to combine stories rather than divide them. To stop putting people into categories and start building spaces where everyone belongs. It was a reminder that change does not always need to be loud. Sometimes it is as simple as noticing who is missing and making room for them.
Moving forward, I want to be more aware of the stories I help create and the spaces they shape. Logan’s talk reminded me that inclusion does not start with design; it starts with listening. I want to look closer at who is being represented in my work and who is not, and to find ways to bring more voices together instead of keeping them apart. It is not about speaking for others, but making sure the space is open enough for everyone to speak for themselves.
References
- Logan, J. (2016, December 5). Framework of Otherness [Video]. TEDxCharlotte. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF4UMa1QuGg
Week 4 · Representation Collage
Artist Statement
The background holds a truthful range of skin colours, sampled from real people. The bandaids use the usual one-size-fits-all “skin tone”. They are meant to disappear; here, they don’t. The image is clear without words: when one tone is sold as neutral, other tones are named as different.
To avoid re-circulating harm, I used colour swatches rather than bodies or faces. The critique targets the default, not any group of people. The invitation is simple: widen the range and let care fit the bodies it serves.
Week 5 · Orientalism and the Power of Representation
Edward Said’s book Orientalism (1978) explores how Western societies shaped how Eastern cultures were seen and understood. He argues that the idea of the “Orient” was not based on truth but on Western imagination, describing it as “almost a European invention… a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes” (Said, 1978, pp. 1–3). Through art, writing, and politics, the East was often framed as exotic, emotional, or behind the times. These portrayals made the West appear more modern and intelligent by comparison. Said explains that when a culture is described as less capable, it becomes easier to control or silence it (Said, 1978, pp. 1–2).
Said uses examples of British leaders describing Egyptians as irrational or childlike to show how stereotypes were used to justify colonial rule. He argues that Orientalism became “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said, 1978, pp. 10–13). Once these ideas were repeated through education and media, they began to sound like facts. He calls this a “system of representation,” where the stories told by those in power become the accepted version of truth. His message is that knowledge is rarely neutral; it often reflects the power of those who produce it (Said, 1978, p. 13).
This reading made me think about how creativity shapes understanding. Said’s work revealed how storytelling and imagery can quietly build systems of belief. As a creative, I see how easily our work can shape what others think is real. Every visual or piece of writing has the power to influence; it can open space for empathy or reinforce distance. This realisation makes me want to create with more awareness and care, knowing that creative work can carry as much impact as any political statement (Said, 1978, pp. 28–30).
What stayed with me is how the same patterns Said wrote about still echo today. We still divide the world into “us” and “them.” Even when the intention is good, stories can repeat the same imbalance. Said’s reminder that representation comes with responsibility feels deeply relevant to creative practice. It asks us to listen first, to collaborate rather than speak for others, and to make space for people to represent themselves. I want my creative work to honour people as they are and to reflect truth, not assumption. That feels like the foundation of ethical storytelling and the kind of art that connects rather than divides (Said, 1978, p. 36).
Reference
- Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Routledge & Kegan Paul. https://ia600800.us.archive.org/33/items/6-said-1978-orientalism-introduction/6%20Said%201978%20Orientalism%20introduction_text.pdf
Week 5 · Voice, Power, and Silence in Representation
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988) examines how power structures determine who is heard and who remains silent. She defines the “subaltern” as those excluded from dominant systems, often women, the poor, and colonised populations, whose knowledge and agency are erased through what she calls “epistemic violence,” the systematic silencing of marginalised voices (Spivak, 1988, p. 24). Even well-intentioned Western intellectuals, she argues, end up reinforcing these hierarchies by filtering others’ voices through their own frameworks (Spivak, 1988, pp. 24–25).
Spivak critiques both colonial historiography and post-structuralist theory for assuming that the oppressed can easily “speak” if given the chance. She argues instead that speech itself is structured by power, and the subaltern’s words are often reinterpreted or erased by those who control the means of representation (Spivak, 1988, p. 26). Using the story of a young Indian woman who died by suicide in protest, Spivak shows how her act was re-narrated by patriarchal and colonial discourses, stripping it of meaning. The question then is not whether the subaltern can speak, but whether anyone in power is capable of listening without rewriting their truth (Spivak, 1988, p. 27).
Spivak’s essay reframed how I think about silence. It is not the absence of voice but the product of power deciding whose voice matters. As a creative, I often work with stories drawn from lived experience, and this reading reminded me how easily creative intent can slip into control. Spivak’s warning that representation can become another form of dominance made me more aware of how design and storytelling can unintentionally silence others (Spivak, 1988, p. 25).
I found her discussion of the “female subaltern” especially confronting. She explains that women within colonised groups are doubly silenced, both by empire and by patriarchy (Spivak, 1988, p. 28). This made me think about projects where women’s experiences are reframed by outside voices, even those claiming to advocate for them. In design, true empowerment means co-authorship, creating with, not for. That requires humility and a willingness to give up narrative control so others can speak in their own way (Spivak, 1988, p. 27).
What I take from this is that creative work should not fill silence with our own voices but make room for others. Listening, patience, and respect become creative tools as powerful as composition or colour. Silence, when held with intention, can be space for authenticity to emerge, not emptiness but potential.
Reference
- Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 24–28). Macmillan. https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~sj6/Spivak%20CanTheSubalternSpeak.pdf
Week 6 - Echoes of Colonialism in Design
Design principles distilled
These principles are distilled directly from Costanza-Chock’s Design Justice framework. I use them to scope work, share power, and check whether impact matches intent (Costanza-Chock, 2018).
The principles act like a reset. Shift from intent to impact and from expert control to shared control. In practice that means clear decision rights, consent that stays alive after launch, and methods that fit bodies and places.
Akama and Yee add a guardrail. Participation slides into control when designers fix the rules, the timelines, and what counts as knowledge. The counter is ongoing consent and real reciprocity, with story, memory work, and silence held alongside the usual designer’s toolset (Akama & Yee, 2021, pp. 304–311).
Gothe and De Santolo make the responsibilities explicit on unceded Country. Invite Elders to lead and approve scope. Follow local protocols. Keep consent alive. Apply ICIP so communities decide how materials move. Pace follows ceremony, seasons, and review cycles; that tempo is cultural safety, not a delay (Gothe & De Santolo, 2022, pp. 1–4, 9–11).
These readings leave me with a simple checklist. If I cannot answer these cleanly, I am drifting back to old habits.
A simple checklist
- Who benefits?
- Who is burdened?
- Who decides?
- Who defines participation?
- How does consent continue over time?
- Where is reciprocity visible in budget and schedule?
- How does Country shape method and pace?
- Who leads and approves scope?
- How are recordings and materials governed and returned?
References
Akama, Y., & Yee, J. (2021). Decolonising participatory design: Memory work, Indigenous epistemologies and ethical co-design. CoDesign, 17(3), 304–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2020.1813351
Costanza-Chock, S. (2018). Design justice: Towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice. In C. Storni, K. Leahy, M. McMahon, P. Lloyd, & E. Bohemia (Eds.), Design as a catalyst for change – DRS International Conference 2018 (pp. 3–11). Design Research Society. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.679
Gothe, J., & De Santolo, J. (2022). Decolonising design practices and research in unceded Australia: Reframing design-led research methods. Architecture_MPS, 21(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2022v21i1.002
Week 6 · Transcultural Flow of Demure Aesthetics: Examining Cultural Globalisation through Gothic & Lolita Fashion
This week’s reading was Monden’s (2008) article on the transcultural flow of demure aesthetics. Using Japanese Gothic and Lolita fashion, it shows hybridity and glocalisation in action: European silhouettes are adapted to Japanese values of cuteness and modesty (pp. 25–26); cultural flow is multidirectional, not just centre to periphery (p. 21); and the online community frames Japanese GothLoli as distinct from Western Goth, with members policing labels and boundaries (pp. 31–33). The same visual elements read differently across places because meaning is set locally by the people who wear and defend the style (pp. 33–35).
Prompt used:
Two faceless female mannequins, full body. Left = Western Goth: blunt-fringe wig, ankh choker, corset, lace sleeves, long velvet skirt, fishnets, platform Mary Janes, wide-brim hat in hand. Right = Japanese GothLoli: big bow, twin curls, puff-sleeve knee dress, lace hem, white collar + ribbon, knee socks, platform Mary Janes, lace parasol. Balanced, soft ground shadows, no crop.
One passage stood out to me, showing how a name can pull in baggage and change how people get read outside their own scene.
Negative conceptions and treatments of GothLoli or individuals dressed in cute and elaborate, lacy clothes outside Japan and especially in Western societies seems to be, at least partly, due to the concept of American (Western) Lolita based on Nabokov’s novel, and the deviant sexual connotations associated with it. One Canadian participant, for example, comments: ‘Many people seem to think I look tarty or silly’. Another Canadian participant, in answer to the question of ‘Is there anything you dislike about Lolita fashion?’, notes: ‘I guess the name. Lolita. Whenever people hear it they assume I’m some sort of whore’ (Monden, 2008, p. 33).
My tattoos are colour and joy to me, yet they’re often read as a sign of deviance. Over multiple trips to Aldi I’ve been bag-checked when my tattoos show; cover my arms and the checks vanish. Same checkout, same routine. The pattern makes it hard to see it as anything but judgement on the tattoos. As with GothLoli wearers, people often assume the worst because outside Japan ‘Lolita’ is tied to Nabokov’s novel Lolita. That association brings sexualised meanings that drown out intent and character.
Both moments show the same thing. A label arrives with history, and that history sets the frame. People don’t always see what we mean. They see what their context primes.
This article is a reminder that design does not travel as a perfect copy. What moves are parts. What lands is what a community reshapes to fit its values, limits, and daily life.
The split between Western Goth and Japanese GothLoli warns me about borrowing labels. Words carry baggage and aesthetics carry histories. If I lift a term or visual system into a new setting without checking how people read it, I risk importing meanings I never intended. Practically, that means early semiotic checks with local users. Does this colour signal celebration or mourning here? Does this gesture offend? Does this label carry harm? These details decide whether the design keeps its dignity.
Reference
- Monden, M. (2008). Transcultural flow of demure aesthetics: Examining cultural globalisation through Gothic and Lolita fashion. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 2, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.21159/nv.02.02
Week 6 · A Day, Mapped Through Globalisation
Globalisation · Day Trace
The brief. Trace your journey over the course of a day, reflecting on the ways that the things you do, read, watch, say, and eat are made possible through globalisation.
| Time | Activity | Local items / details | Globalisation touchpoints |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:00 | Feed animals | Cat and dog food Australian brand. Chickens on local grains and seeds. Guinea pigs on local hay, Australian made pellets, fresh veggies. | National transport links suppliers to WA. Some ingredients, vitamins and packaging may be sourced from outside the state or overseas. |
| 7:15 | Make tea | Lipton black tea with West Australian milk and two sugars. | Tea is grown and processed overseas, then packed for AU and NZ markets. Local dairy meets imported supply chains in one mug. |
| Morning | Phone and laptop | Samsung phone. Acer laptop. Email and Slack. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Adobe apps. | Korean and Taiwanese hardware. Mostly US based platforms. Content and updates delivered via global data centres and networks. |
| 12:30 | Lunch | Polony sandwich with WA bakery bread and Australian made polony. Can of Coke. Natural Australian spring water. | Even with Australian made bread, polony and butter, and natural Australian spring water, the meal still connects to global systems via Coke (global brand with local bottling), multinational ownership, packaging supply chains, and ingredient sourcing that relies on international logistics. |
| Afternoon | Work and study | Adobe apps. Read PDFs. Write. Export files. Same tools as the morning. | Cloud storage and backups across regions. Software built and maintained by international teams. Calls and syncs travel across states and borders. |
| Evening | Cook dinner | WA veg with steak. Imported rice. Spices that are Aussie packed and grown elsewhere. | Local produce alongside imported staples. Grocery logistics combine local distribution with international sourcing. |
| Night | Watch TV | ABC iview and Netflix on the same couch. | One local broadcaster and one global streamer. Programs licensed across regions and delivered through global content networks on local NBN. |
Reflection
Tracing a plain day made the pattern obvious. What feels local is carried by quiet systems: Australian pet food that still rides national freight, a Lipton teabag grown and packed overseas, a Samsung phone and Acer laptop running US-built platforms, a Coke bottled here but owned elsewhere, and shows that stream from global networks to my couch. None of this is dramatic; it is just how the day works.
Week 8 · The New Global Culture
This week’s reading, The New Global Culture by Gómez-Peña, warns that corporate multiculturalism turns difference into a consumable product and confuses visibility with justice. “Spectacle has replaced content” (Gómez-Peña, 2001, p. 13). “The new transnational multiculturalism is actually devoid of ‘real’ people of color” (p. 12).
“Under this corporate logic, blacks are fine announcing Nikes, and Latinos are okay shaking our butts to ‘La Vida Loca’” (Gómez-Peña, 2001, p. 12). Here the market welcomes certain images when they sell or entertain. Faces and bodies become style; context, power, and demands stay out of frame. Difference becomes a look, not a voice. In simple terms: you can appear, as long as you don’t decide.
I used to believe that more cultural “visibility” in design was good by default. I thought presence equalled progress. After this reading, I can see how display without power is a hollow win. It’s a costume change, not a change in who decides. In my work as a designer, that insight shows up when I choose what sits at the centre of a piece.
I now ask whether the work invites participation or just arranges faces around a fixed idea. In plain terms: am I making space, or simply making a poster. Advertising can borrow the look of culture. The power sits off-camera in budgets, briefs, and who gets paid to decide.
I like work that is real and raw, but raw can tip into spectacle if I don’t be careful. The balance is telling the truth without turning pain into a show. Next time I feel that edge, I want to pause and ask: does this choice help someone understand and act, or does it put a life on display. If the answer is blurry, I will keep the form plain, name the power at play, and make sure decision-making sits with the people most affected. Clear over clever. Consent-led over shock.
There is still a line between respectful minimalism and erasure. Silence can be care. It can also hide absence. I will keep asking whether quiet design protects people or protects me from discomfort. In simple words: is the quiet for safety, or for me.
Design that refuses spectacle and centres agency helps move from being seen to being heard, and from being heard to being able to decide.
References
- Gómez-Peña, G. (2001). The new global culture: Somewhere between corporate multiculturalism and the mainstream bizarre (A border perspective). TDR/The Drama Review, 45(1), 7–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146878
- Pinterest. (n.d.). 90s basketball posters [Image pin]. Retrieved 3 November 2025, from https://au.pinterest.com/pin/389772542771917926/
Week 8 · Reading Reflection · Gomes da Silva
What stayed with me from this chapter is not just the story of an Afro-Brazilian woman travelling to the United States. It’s the feeling of waking up from a dream you actually needed to survive (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 141–142). As a girl in São Paulo, Gomes da Silva builds her sense of Blackness out of scraps: gospel, soul, rap, film, TV. Out of that patchwork she makes an “African American way of life” that looks confident, stylish and politically powerful. It’s not a casual crush on US culture. It’s a lifeline in a country that constantly tells her Black people are less (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 141–142).
“Love at first sound. This is how I choose to describe how my journey as an Afro-Brazilian living abroad started” (Gomes da Silva, 2016, p. 141).
So her early fantasy makes sense. When your own media either erases you or turns you into a stereotype, of course you reach for the images that show you alive and powerful. The chapter doesn’t mock that. It treats that fantasy as something tender and necessary (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 141–142). That matters, because it stops me doing the easy thing of sitting outside her story and judging her for being “naïve” about the US. The truth is, the fantasy was doing real work for her.
The fracture comes when she finally arrives in the United States and the real thing will not sit neatly inside the story she brought with her. She expects a more unified and “advanced” Black community. Instead she gets a complicated picture: racism embedded in everyday life, class and regional differences between Black communities, academic spaces that are not automatically welcoming just because they are in the US (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 147–148). What she loved from a distance is still there, but it is surrounded by mess and contradiction. The chapter doesn’t end with her turning away from African American culture. It ends with her refusing to keep pretending it can stand in for all Black life.
This is where the reading cuts deeper for me. It shows how global media doesn’t just “share” culture, it builds hierarchies inside the African diaspora. African American stories, especially those that can be packaged into familiar genres and slogans, become the reference point. They travel. They get subtitled. They get quoted. They feel global. Afro-Brazilian realities do not move through the world in the same way. That means she ends up measuring herself and her surroundings against a model that was never meant to hold every Black experience (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 145–147).
Seen through habitus, her reaction is painfully logical. She has been trained, by media and by Brazil’s own racial politics, to see the US as the centre and African American culture as “the” Black culture that matters. Her sense of taste, of what counts as politically sharp or aesthetically powerful, is shaped inside that field. When she moves to the US, her body brings all of that with her. The shock is not just intellectual. It’s embodied. The things she thought would feel like home do not, and she has to rework her sense of belonging on the fly (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 141–148).
Sitting with this as a white Australian designer, I can’t pretend I’m outside the pattern. I’ve been fed the same pipeline of US content my whole life. It has quietly taught me what a “good” story looks like: the pacing, the turn to hope, the polished trauma arc, the way diversity is framed to still feel comfortable for mainstream audiences. If I’m honest, those patterns still sit in my bones as the default. When I plan projects about “real people” or “everyday stories,” it’s very easy to slide them towards formats I recognise from US media, then call that professionalism or good craft.
Gomes da Silva’s chapter forces an awkward question: when I say I’m moved by another culture, what exactly am I loving? The people and their realities, or the edited version of them I’ve been trained to consume? Her younger self loves African American life in a way that is deeply emotional but also heavily mediated. Once she meets the complexity up close, she doesn’t stop loving it, but she does surrender the idea that it can be her map. That shift feels important. It suggests that loving another culture is not the problem. The problem is insisting that your fantasy of it gets to stay intact once you’ve met the people who live it (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 147–148).
For my own practice as a designer, this reading becomes a kind of warning label. If I’m not careful, I could easily fall back on story shapes and visual languages that feel “right” because they match what I have absorbed from US media: tidy arcs, familiar colour palettes, certain documentary tones. That might make the work legible to institutions and funders but still quietly recentre a narrow model of what counts as a powerful or “universal” story.
What I want to carry from this chapter is a harder discipline: notice when I’m reaching for the familiar shape, and then ask whether it actually belongs to the people I’m working with. Accept that some stories will stay stubbornly local, slow, contradictory, or unresolved, and that this is not a failure. Accept that loving a culture or a community sometimes means letting go of the version of them that made me feel good and staying with the one that tells me “no, that’s not how it is.”
In the end, this reading doesn’t give me a neat answer. It does something more useful. It leaves me with tension: between gratitude for the way global Black media has inspired people like Gomes da Silva, and discomfort about how easily one version of Blackness gets treated as the standard (Gomes da Silva, 2016, pp. 145–148). That tension is probably where the honest work sits. If I can keep feeling it, instead of smoothing it over, then maybe studying other cultures, and making art that touches them, stays possible without turning them back into a dream that only serves me.
References
- Gomes da Silva, D. F. (2016). Living the African American way of life—Impressions and disillusions of an Afro-Brazilian woman in the United States. In G. Mitchell-Walthour & E. Hordge-Freeman (Eds.), Race and the politics of knowledge production: Diaspora and black transnational scholarship in the United States and Brazil. Palgrave Macmillan.
Week 8 · Encountering Other Cultures with Care
This week's question stayed with me: Can we study other cultures kindly and carefully? Can we make honest work about human experience without doing harm? Can we love a culture that is not our own without taking from it?
I think we can. But it requires humility, genuine listening, and practical steps to share power, not just good intentions.
I need to start by being honest about where I'm standing. The concept of habitus reminds me that my tastes, my assumptions, my instincts, they all come from my particular life as a mother, a designer, an Australian (Maton, 2014, pp. 49–50). Naming that position isn't about shame or credential-flexing. It's actually a practical tool. When I acknowledge my perspective, I can see what I'm assuming and what I need to verify. This kind of reflexivity shifts the questions I ask and the choices I make in my work.
What gives me hope is understanding that cultures aren't static things we observe from the outside. They move, they change, they remix themselves. Monden's work on Gothic and Lolita fashion shows how styles and meanings travel across borders and become something new in local contexts (2008, pp. 21–24). These aren't just copies or appropriations; they're creative reinterpretations. That means cross-cultural exchange can be generative and authentic, but only when we pay attention to how meaning gets remade in local places, by local people.
But here's where it gets uncomfortable, and where I think we have to sit with that discomfort: power matters. Gómez-Peña's critique of corporate multiculturalism is sharp and necessary. He warns that a sanitized, market-friendly version of "multiculturalism" can turn people into spectacle, commodifying the very communities we claim to celebrate (2001, pp. 11–13). His anger in that piece is instructive. It asks us to look at who controls the narrative, who profits, who owns the rights. When we skip those questions, even our best intentions can cause harm.
Kind practice isn't just about making nicer pictures or more sensitive content. It's about sharing control, paying fairly, and letting people shape how they're represented (Gómez-Peña, 2001, p. 12).
So is it still okay to love another culture? I think yes, but only if that love is humble enough to be corrected. Love has to become practice, not just feeling. It means co-creating rather than extracting. It means offering fair compensation, giving clear credit, and accepting that community partners can say no. That's how love supports people instead of treating them as resources (Maton, 2014, pp. 53–54; Gómez-Peña, 2001, pp. 12–13).
What would ethical global media practice actually look like? The readings suggest a framework: start with honest reflection about your position, treat cultural exchange as a two-way street where local context matters, and actively resist corporate multiculturalism's easy flattening of difference. In practical terms, that means long-term collaborations, shared decision-making, and budgets that include direct fees and training for community partners (Maton, 2014, pp. 49–50; Monden, 2008, pp. 21–24; Gómez-Peña, 2001, pp. 11–13).
I keep thinking about examples that get it right. Monden points to grassroots subcultural work that preserves local meaning rather than diluting it for mass consumption (2008, pp. 25–28). Gómez-Peña highlights performance practices that resist making everything palatable and saleable (2001, pp. 14–16). When I consider local projects that do this well I cant help but recognise the work of the Community Arts Network in Western Australia, which has spent over forty years partnering with communities to share histories that are unwritten or unspoken, creating space for participants' acts of resistance and resilience to be heard (Community Arts Network, n.d.). These types of models teach us what to look for and what to support.
For my capstone, I'm imagining something I'm calling The Museum of Lived Experiences—an online space where contributors genuinely set the terms. Each project would begin with a clear positionality statement. Contributors would co-design editorial guidelines and maintain veto power over how they're represented. The entire design would center dignity, choice, and care. This model draws directly from habitus-informed reflexivity, from glocalisation that honors local meaning-making, and from the insistence that ethical practice must redistribute resources, not just extract stories (Maton, 2014, pp. 49–50; Monden, 2008, pp. 21–24; Gómez-Peña, 2001, pp. 11–13).
So yes, I believe it's possible to study culture carefully, to make work that honors people, and to love across difference. But it demands more work from us. It demands patience, accountability, and actual power-sharing, not symbolic gestures. That's the kind of practice I want to build and be part of.
References
- Community Arts Network. (n.d.). CAN | Community Arts Network. https://www.can.org.au/
- Gómez-Peña, G. (2001). The new global culture: Somewhere between corporate multiculturalism and the mainstream bizarre (A border perspective). The Drama Review, 45(1), 7–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146878
- Maton, K. (2014). Habitus. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts (2nd ed., pp. 48–64). Routledge.
- Monden, M. (2008). Transcultural flow of demure aesthetics: Examining cultural globalisation through Gothic & Lolita fashion. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 2, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.21159/nv.02.02
Week 9 · Understanding Art Beyond Our Own Culture
This week’s webinar felt simple on the surface, but it shifted something for me. We went around the room and named where we have lived or travelled and what languages we speak. I have not left Australia, so most of what I think I know about other cultures has come through screens, news and social media. Listening to classmates talk about moving between countries, languages and expectations made “other cultures” feel less like a topic and more like other full worlds that people are actually living in.
The readings on ontologies and habitus helped me put language around that. Bourdieu argues that what feels like a natural aesthetic “eye” is not neutral at all, but something produced by particular social and historical conditions (Bourdieu, 1987, pp. 201–203). Maton describes habitus as the link between social structures and the way we see and act in daily life, a set of durable dispositions that shape our practice (Maton, 2008, pp. 49–50). When I apply that to myself, it makes sense that I gravitate to work that builds empathy and takes some of the sharp edges off systems that feel harsh or excluding. My idea of what counts as “good” or “important” work comes out of care roles, periods of instability, and a long-running focus on design for social change. From another habitus, the same project could read completely differently: as a spiritual responsibility, a way to honour ancestors, a symbol of national pride, or simply a smart economic move.
The Brazil audiovisual report only started to click once I stopped treating it as a dry economic document and started reading it as a cultural one. The report frames audiovisual production as an economic engine and a tool for international competitiveness (Olsberg•SPI, 2024, p. 3), backing this up with projections about gross domestic product, tax revenue and employment, and modelling how a new federal incentive could attract more investment and international productions. The fact that it focuses so heavily on measurable economic outcomes, rather than story, representation or audience experience, signals an ontology where creative work is understood first as infrastructure for jobs, reputation and national visibility. In my own habitus in Australia, I tend to treat creative work as infrastructure of a different kind: a space for healing, connection and gentle disruption. Both views take creative work seriously and see it as shaping people’s futures, but where the report leans toward nation building and economic strategy, my practice leans toward care, lived experience and social change.
This week’s brief asks whether we can really appreciate the subtleties of an art form we have not been enculturated into. After this week, my answer is yes, but only if I stop treating my way of seeing as the default. If my aesthetic eye is historically produced and my habitus is one possible way of being in the world, then my job is to ask better questions: What kind of world does this work assume? In that world, what is creative work for and who is it trying to protect, honour or advance? Those questions give me a way in. I may never fully inhabit another ontology, but I can choose to meet it with honesty about where I am standing, a willingness to sit with not fully “getting it”, and a commitment to let those differences reshape how I understand and make art beyond my own culture.
References
- Bourdieu, P. (1987). The historical genesis of a pure aesthetic. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 46(2), 201–210.
- Maton, K. (2008). Habitus. In M. Grenfell (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts (pp. 48–64). Acumen.
- Olsberg•SPI. (2024). Economic impact study for a new federal audiovisual production incentive in Brazil. Olsberg•SPI.
Week 10 · Encountering Creative Practice Across Cultures
This week forced me to admit something uncomfortable: I am not a neutral viewer. In class we talked about grouping the world into five broad cultural clusters. It is a simplification, but it showed me how much my habitus shapes my first reactions to art. What I read as beautiful, strange, serious or childish is not universal, it is my cluster speaking. This feels even more true when I think about how small my world has actually been. I have never left Australia. Most of what I know about other cultures comes through screens, not from living inside those places myself.
The Australian context makes this more complicated. According to Face the Facts, one in four people here were born overseas, almost half of us are first or second generation migrants, and around 20 per cent speak a language other than English at home (Australian Human Rights Commission [AHRC], 2014, p. 3). On paper this sounds like I should be exposed to a wide range of cultures just by living here. But being surrounded by multiculturalism is not the same as understanding it. Most people I meet have already adjusted parts of their culture to fit into Australian life. What I see is often a blended version shaped by the dominant Anglo Australian environment. I am not experiencing their full cultural world, only the part that can live comfortably in mine. So even though Australia is multicultural, my own worldview is still very local and filtered.
At the same time, Face the Facts shows that discrimination, race hate talk and exclusion are still happening here based on skin colour, language or origin (AHRC, 2014, p. 3). So my everyday reality is not a gentle melting pot, it is a place where cultures meet under uneven conditions. Some people quietly adjust themselves to be accepted, while others move through the same space without feeling any need to change at all. Living in that tension has made me wary of simple answers. Instead of imagining culture as something we either blend or keep separate, I am more focused on how we hold difference with care. That awareness sits quietly in the background when I look at art now. I find myself noticing whose comfort is centred, whose story has been softened, and where the quiet pressure to adapt might be hiding inside the work.
In the Medium article Vanessa Brown writes about teaching students from all over the world and slowly discovering how small cultural details, like South Korea’s traditional age system where everyone becomes a year older together, carry deep meaning that is invisible from the outside (Brown, 2024). From a distance, that could look like a quirky fact. Up close, it reflects a whole way of thinking about time, community and belonging. This reminded me that globalisation has not created one big shared culture. It has created a patchwork of very specific lives and traditions now sharing the same space, sitting underneath those broad clusters we talked about in class. Mixing will keep happening. People will keep partnering across cultures, kids will keep growing up with more than one background, and traditions will keep shifting. The real work for me is staying curious enough to notice the depth instead of flattening everything into quick labels.
So who am I, the artist, inside all of this. I do not want to freeze my own culture in place, and I do not want to treat other cultures as decoration for my work. I want to move gently in a global, multicultural world, knowing my own view is limited and shaped by where I stand. That means asking where my influences come from, listening when something is not mine to use, and treating other cultures’ creative practices with respect rather than assumption. I cannot control the cultural changes happening around me, but I can choose the kind of artist I want to be inside them. For me, that means leading with curiosity, kindness and awareness when I look at the work of others, and when I create my own.
References
- Australian Human Rights Commission. (2014). Face the facts: Cultural diversity. Australian Human Rights Commission. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/face-facts-cultural-diversity
- Brown, V. (2024, July 19). Uncovering surprising facts and traditions from around the world. Middle Pause, Medium. https://medium.com/middle-pause/uncovering-surprising-facts-and-traditions-from-around-the-world-cfcc125f1242
Week 11 · Cultural Engagement: Kill Bill Vol. 1 Poster
This week we were asked to pick a cultural text and look at how it represents another culture. I chose the Kill Bill Vol. 1 poster: a woman in yellow, holding a katana against a yellow background.
What interests me is how it borrows without erasing. Monden (2008) writes that cultural globalisation doesn't have to flatten everything into sameness, it can create "glocalisation and hybridisation" (p. 21). The poster does this. The yellow jumpsuit and katana have moved between cultures, been reinterpreted, become part of a visual language that carries weight across borders. Not purely Japanese, not purely American. Something that exists in the space between.
The jumpsuit comes from Bruce Lee's Game of Death (Bose, 2021), already a symbol in martial arts cinema. But here it's on a woman in a revenge story. The katana pulls from samurai tradition and Japanese sword films, but it's in an American film that also draws from Italian westerns and exploitation cinema. The flat yellow background places her nowhere, just colour, just shape, just figure. That emptiness lets the borrowed elements stand clear while being transformed into something else entirely.
The poster doesn't hide what it's doing. It shows where it's pulling from, makes the borrowing visible. That honesty shifts it from theft toward what Monden calls glocalisation, where sources recombine into something that belongs fully to neither place of origin. What strikes me is how visibility itself becomes the ethical act. Not concealing the lineage but acknowledging it openly. The question isn't whether we borrow across cultures, it's whether we're honest about it and whether we use those borrowed pieces to create something that didn't exist before.
Beyond the poster, the whole film is a love letter to cinema from around the world. Kill Bill Vol. 1 doesn't just borrow from Japanese samurai traditions or Bruce Lee's martial arts—it pulls from everywhere. You can see the influence of Hong Kong kung fu movies, Japanese chanbara classics like Lady Snowblood, Italian spaghetti westerns, American grindhouse and revenge films, and even the bold colors of giallo. Tarantino layers these styles together so openly that the film feels like a global remix rather than a copy. That's what makes it powerful: it shows its sources, celebrates them, and turns them into something new. It's not about erasing cultures, but about weaving them into a shared cinematic language.
What stands out to me is that Kill Bill Vol. 1—both in its poster and in the film itself—shows how cultural borrowing can be creative rather than destructive. It doesn't pretend to be "authentic" to one tradition; instead, it embraces hybridity and makes that process visible. In a world where globalisation often feels like sameness, this kind of openness matters. It reminds us that cultures don't have to compete or cancel each other out—they can meet, mix, and make something new. That's not just a cinematic technique; it's a way of thinking about cultural exchange with honesty and respect.
References (APA 7)
- Bose, S. D. (2021, December 6). How Bruce Lee inspired Quentin Tarantino movie "Kill Bill." Far Out Magazine. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/how-bruce-lee-inspired-quentin-tarantino-movie-kill-bill/
- Monden, M. (2008). Transcultural flow of demure aesthetics: Examining cultural globalisation through Gothic and Lolita fashion. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 2, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.21159/nv.02.02
- TMDb. (2025). Kill Bill Vol. 1 — poster image [Image]. https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/8vJ9WpPyxKjcedDZJvCmoHHd3a4.jpg
Week 12 · Cultural Engagement: Representation & Funding
Reading Screen Australia's Seeing Ourselves 2 alongside the government's Revive policy hit me with a mix of hope and frustration. First Nations representation in TV dramas is finally exceeding population benchmarks at 7.2% (Screen Australia, 2023, pp. 9, 40), while disability remains critically underrepresented at 6.6% compared to 18% of the population (pp. 40-42). Even when disabled practitioners do get on set, they often hide their access needs, take on uncompensated cultural labour, and risk reputational damage just to participate (Screen Australia, 2023, pp. 78-80). It's not about bad individuals; it's structural ableism baked into our creative industries.
Policy investment tells a story of its own. First Nations artists receive $146.4 million—around $38.5 million per 1% of the population—while disability funding sits at just $5 million, about $0.28 million per 1% of population (DITRDCA, 2023, pp. 97-98). The difference is staggering: First Nations funding is 137 times higher per capita. This doesn't diminish the need for First Nations support; it validates it. But it exposes how disability is still treated as an afterthought, supplemental rather than foundational. Visibility without power doesn't change lived experience. Representation on screen is only meaningful if it comes with agency, budget, and creative influence.
What these documents leave me with is a call to action. Policy gives openings, but real change lives in the practice. In my campaigns, I can't just show diverse faces. I have to shift resources, decision-making, and authority into the hands of marginalised creators. Disability justice cannot wait for government priorities to catch up; First Nations leadership shows what's possible when communities hold power over their own stories. My work has to over-correct, to build equity into every brief, budget, and contract, making visibility meaningful and sustainable.
References
- Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. (2023). Revive: A place for every story, a story for every place—Australia's cultural policy for the next five years. Commonwealth of Australia.
- Screen Australia. (2023). Seeing Ourselves 2: Diversity, equity and inclusion in Australian TV drama. Screen Australia.
Week 12 · Critical Hybridity: Remixing Kill Bill
Last week, I explored Kill Bill Vol. 1 through cultural hybridity. I admired how Tarantino borrowed from Japanese samurai films, Bruce Lee’s legacy, and global exploitation cinema. At the time, I thought this was ethical borrowing, following Monden’s (2008) idea of “glocalisation,” where cultures meet and transform each other. The yellow jumpsuit, katana, and clean poster design seemed to honour their origins while creating something new.
This week, I remixed the poster to explore what lies beneath the borrowed aesthetics. At first, I thought about replacing the katana with a gun, but it felt too confrontational, so I chose a baseball bat instead. The yellow background was replaced with the American flag.
The katana wasn’t just a weapon—it carried meaning, lending the film a sense of philosophy and artistry. Tarantino borrowed this to soften the brutality of revenge. The baseball bat is blunt, unmistakably American, tied to street justice. The remix reveals Kill Bill as it truly is: an American revenge story wearing someone else’s culture to elevate itself.
The American flag background makes this explicit. Yellow felt neutral; the stars and stripes claim identity clearly. The remix exposes American violence framed in borrowed aesthetics.
Reflecting on this, I see how much I let Tarantino off the hook. Citing sources doesn’t equal fairness. The jumpsuit is iconic as “the Kill Bill suit,” not “the Bruce Lee suit.” Most audiences won’t see Lady Snowblood. My remix exposes how appropriation can look sophisticated while concentrating cultural capital.
Without the katana, the borrowed elements are revealed as tools shaping the film’s perceived intelligence. Cultural hybridity can enrich, but we must ask: who benefits, whose stories rise, whose are overshadowed?
The baseball bat is uncomfortable in a useful way. It shows how easily we accept aestheticised appropriation, yet react when prestige is removed. Ethical cultural exchange isn’t just homage—it needs shared power, credit, and opportunity.
A gun would have made this critique even starker, but I couldn’t. I oppose gun violence, and a gun would flatten American culture into a stereotype. The baseball bat became a thoughtful choice: clearly American, stripped of borrowed prestige, but not reducing a culture to violence. This shows how critique itself can risk the same harm it seeks to reveal.
For my practice, this means more than referencing diverse sources. It’s about creating space for marginalised creators and recognising that design choices carry weight. Critique must dismantle power structures without building new ones. My remix exposes the American core of Kill Bill while holding me accountable as a designer. Ethical design isn’t just visibility—it’s redistributing creative power thoughtfully and responsibly.
References
- Monden, M. (2008). Transcultural flow of demure aesthetics: Examining cultural globalisation through Gothic and Lolita fashion. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 2, 21–40. https://doi.org/10.21159/nv.02.02
- TMDb. (2025). Kill Bill Vol. 1—poster image [Image]. https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/8vJ9WpPyxKjcedDZJvCmoHHd3a4.jpg