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Context
Brief
The Indigenous Research Support Initiative (IRSI) works on fostering ethical engagement practices and collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities. In October 2018, IRSI hosted a gathering of several Indigenous community leaders and University faculty, staff, and students to brainstorm principles that could form the foundation of IRSI's work. The outcomes needed to be shared with its wide audience in a format that would collate multiple ideas and be culturally relevant.
Role
Creative Communications Assistant, Indigenous Research Support Initiative
Skills
CREATIVE DIRECTION
RESEARCH
WRITING
ILLUSTRATION
CONCEPTUALIZATION
At the beginning, there were just meeting notes and 20 chart papers from break-out discussion groups with a number of points listed. I started by mapping principles and narrowing the themes down.
To present these creatively and capture the conversations, I wanted to experiment with the metaphor of different parts of a building that culminate in a strong relationship. As the audience for this was indigenous communities, I decided on looking at the "Long House" as the centrepiece.
DESIGN PROCESS
I hit the library to research culturally appropriate language and storytelling methods to frame the writing style. I also dived deep into books on indigenous architecture of British Columbia to understand the significance of its design features. With this knowledge I drafted the Principles of Engagement - What we heard accompanied with illustrations.
LESSONS
My greatest learning from this was how to respect a community's voice and present it with the intention, tone, and meaning behind it, all while trying not to impose one’s own way of listening. It took a lot of research and many edits and rounds of consultation with senior University executives and indigenous advisors and was finally presented to the community in November 2019.
