For this project, our studio art class worked with various materials to create collages based upon who or what needed more compassion. We focused on certain aspects of design such as layout/composition, colour, shape/form, and general imagery/messaging and worked to convey both through our drawn images and use of material what our posters are meant to be about. Both posters are meant to appeal to the same idea/audience, but communicate it in different ways.
For my project, I wanted to focus on children in foster care, and appeal to social workers to “have more compassion” for these kids.
I specifically wanted interview my Abuelita, who went through the foster care system as a child. Her recount of what she went through was incredibly eye-opening, and it allowed me to find an angle to approach these from. I wanted to take the issues she had with the system, and show how these issues could be fixed. I wanted to push a positive “you-can-change-it” attitude for social workers, since I think they are the forces here that I wanted to reach out to about what foster kids are going through.
I wanted this first piece to reflect the idea of “fitting together” and how the social worker can also be a “piece of the puzzle”, but also separate them from the family unit itself. I wanted to show how social workers are the ones who can help bring together a family, and are in charge of protecting those kids. The social worker here holds an umbrella, protecting this family, and sheltering them from the storm.
