Aakifa Chida

Will You Notice? Will You Change?

Discrimination towards Muslims is an ever-growing socio-political problem. Aakifa Chida’s practice based research highlights this global issue, with the aim to increase awareness of Islamophobia through communication design.

Recent global patterns of political hate speech, mass media brainwashing and harmful stereotypes are used to incite irrational fear and general insensitivity towards Islamophobia. Design activism is employed in this study to address these behaviours and attitudes, to create change by catalysing a sense of empathy with victims and heightening responsibility and accountability within viewers.

Undertaken as a Master’s thesis, Chida’s research asks if communication design can impact, encourage and influence social awareness around Islamophobia through printed and digital resources. 

The research covers the importance and relevance of design activism when set against manifestations of Islamophobia that are present in social, political and historical contexts. This project attempts to inform and educate viewers about Islamophobia, to create positive and lasting change. Chida produces a combination of self-authored and compiled resources across printed and digital mediums to address the issue, engendering solidarity and social empathy.

Centre for Design Research
Te Kura Toi a Hoahoa
School of Art and Design

Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau,
Auckland University of Technology

Contact:

Gregory Bennett greg.bennett@aut.ac.nz
Susan Hedges susan.hedges@aut.ac.nz
Mandy Smith mandy.smith@aut.ac.nz

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish images or illustrations with their papers in CDR; neither editors nor publishers of CDR accept responsibility for any author’s/authors’ failure to do so.

© Centre for Design Research, AUT University 2021