From girl to woman:
Making a way out through design

(2024)
How do we build our true identity in an era saturated by algorithmic consumption, liquid trends, and the unconscious reproduction of inherited dynamics? From girl to woman: Making a way out through design is a visual, theoretical, and practical investigation to analyze how the male gaze conditions self-expression, identity, and the perception that the female gender has of itself in mass culture.






 Facing the inertia of mass opinions that dilute individual criteria, this research project activates graphic design, conscious archiving, and analog creativity as essential tools for resistance, emancipation, and self-knowledge. Avoiding the rigidity of a closed thesis, the proposal unfolds as an open platform that shares self-exploration methodologies to motivate the construction of one's own gaze.
            The project is articulated through Design Research (research through design) and intuitive design. The investigation eludes the traditional boundaries of disciplines and composes a hybrid fabric where the theoretical analysis of visual codes and the creation of original content (illustration, analytical photography, video, sound, and lyrics) permanently interact. The conceptual base deconstructs the cultural patterns and visual codes of framing, lighting, and narrative that perpetuate the objectification of women, cataloged by theorist Laura Mulvey under the condition of to-be-looked-at-ness, and dialogues with John Berger's reflections in Ways of Seeing ("Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at"). To break away from this structure, the proposal feeds on and celebrates the "ways of doing" of a constellation of essential female creators who have used creative work to sculpt a gaze and an image of their own outside of unconscious patriarchal filters.
            In a context of liquid and uninterrupted consumption of data, this proposal values the creation process and analog experimentation, Making a way out through design functions as a direct invitation to activate critical thinking, question the environment, and reclaim creativity as the ideal channel for every individual to shape, mold, and liberate their own identity.