Clutching

I’ve been meaning to write for weeks. So much has happened, and I don’t know where to start. I’ve been listening to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” on repeat. Inexplicably, the lyrics bring me to tears: “You got a fast car. I want a ticket to anywhere. Maybe we make a deal. Maybe together we can get somewhere. Any place is better. Starting from zero got nothing to lose. Maybe we’ll make something. But me myself I got nothing to prove.”

I leave London in a matter of weeks. In most ways, I’m excited to return to the US. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends, to starting grad school, to finally feeling at home. And yet, some part of me wonders what will become of the memories once I leave this place. Despite periods of loneliness and self-doubt — or perhaps because of them — I credit this year with teaching me to be more truthful with myself and less afraid of failure.

I think that it’s hard for many of us to admit that it’s natural to seek external validation. We want to be told that the things we value are as true for others as they are for ourselves. I have come to believe that I will likely always be bound — to some extent — by a need to be loved and understood. And yet, my experiences this year have helped me understand the worth of my own convictions, even as I subject them to constant scrutiny and questioning.


Edinburgh, site of the Fulbright End Cap conference. More photos here.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been working frantically to complete my Fulbright project at the Helen Hamlyn Centre. We ended up with two poster campaigns: Safe Sex at Every Age, a health education campaign aimed at older people that encourages them to protect their sexual health, and Love Is, a public awareness campaign aimed at mainstream society attempting to destigmatize intimacy in later life. In addition, we’re working on a final round of edits to a 40-page book that compiles all of the designs and the research that led to their production. Preview available here.

Working on this project has allowed me to understand how sociology and design are natural complements. Without the input of the older people who questioned my preconceptions and criticized my designs, I would never have been able to produce work that addresses the challenges they face every day. One of my respondents remarked, “So much graphic design out there is so disrespectful. It’s done by designers who have the right intentions but no idea about the issues. There’s this stuff that says 50 is the new 20. Why does 50 have to be 20? Why can’t 50 just be 50?”

What I’m most proud of is that the designs don’t take on the patronizing character indicative of most health-promotion literature, but instead try to imagine a world where older adults are valued as complete human beings with genuine needs for care and affection. As another of my respondents explained, “We manage. We all of us manage. But is it really about managing? That’s what the stiff upper lip is about. That’s what this whole nation is based on. Managing is not a full and satisfying life. ”


Postcard versions of the Safe Sex at Every Age campaign


Rendering of Love Is campaign on the London Underground


Campaign rendering on the side of a bus

Because it just went through a massive merger, Age UK, our charity partner, is unlikely to publish the work in the near future. However, we’ve been very fortunate to meet leading researchers in HIV/AIDS and aging from the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA) in New York City and and Terrence Higgins Trust in London. In particular, Dr. Steve Karpiak from ACRIA has become a passionate advocate for my work and has poured an immense amount of effort into helping me apply for a Sappi Ideas That Matter grant to distribute the work publicly in the United States. We will be notified about the results in September. Fingers crossed.

As if that weren’t enough, the charities brought me along to the International AIDS Conference in Vienna last week, where 15000 postcard-sized versions of my work were distributed to conference attendees, and I had the privilege to speak at a satellite event on Aging and HIV. Media coverage here and here. This was my first time presenting at any kind of conference, and there wasn’t anything that wasn’t humbling about the experience. Luckily, the audience was receptive to a design approach, and the charities were very pleased.

One gentleman said it was the best session he’d been to all week because the speakers really “got it.” Another commented that he was moved that a young person could have empathy for the difficulties facing older people with HIV. Several experts from the Netherlands and Africa approached me afterwards expressing their interest to incorporate design into their own efforts. Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of HIV/AIDS at the UN’s World Health Organization, was in attendance and responded to our presentations by saying: “Aging with HIV is not just a clinical challenge, it is a clinical and a social challenge, and it’s not just confined to one part of the world versus another.” While these responses are obviously flattering, I think we’re all just very grateful that the presentations gave voice to an issue too often ignored. I certainly am.


Presenting at the International AIDS Conference


Me and the incredible group of researchers from ACRIA and THT

Alongside all this, I’ve also been fortunate enough to work on a project called the Anti Design Festival during my last few months here in London. Essentially, I’ve been given the opportunity to work with Neville Brody, the creative director of Research Studios in Islington, to help put on a 9-day festival in September that challenges the prevailing notion that art and design exist only to make money. To do so, we are collecting and exhibiting work that prioritizes experimentation and risk above commercial gain and expectation.

My main responsibility is to help curate and manage one of the main festival spaces. The experience thus far has been overwhelming and inspiring in equal parts. I sometimes become frustrated at the seeming randomness that often pervades the work, only to find that the chaos serves a fundamental and foundational role to an event of this kind. The designers in the studio have been incredibly generous and have been teaching me much about opening myself to new ways of reaching people with design.

If nothing else, this year has taught me that it’s okay to walk into a room where you’re the least-experienced, least-knowledgable person, so long as you maintain a positive orientation towards learning and possess enough self-belief to accept criticism and praise with an equal measure of gratitude. At the beginning of my Fulbright year, I remember commenting that I felt lost in the sea of talent and achievement that surrounded me. I felt the same way at Pentagram where I worked around people I idolized. That feeling hasn’t really gone away, but I’ve come to accept that there are certain things I do well, and that I should never belittle my talents.


Anti Design Festival logo by Neville

Over the last month or so, I’ve been hanging out quite a bit with my new friend Adam, a chemical engineering student from Georgia Tech who was staying at the hostel I’ve been living in for the past year. Maybe it’s a sign of how homesick I am, but it was overwhelmingly nice to meet someone from the United States. Adam made me realize that I had been focused only on my work in London to the exclusion of actually experiencing the city. The day after I spent an all-nighter completing my book design, he dragged me to Les Misérables (one of my favorite shows), followed by Henry IV at the Globe Theatre (a three-hour, standing-room experience). Both performances were incredible, though I was nearly falling asleep standing up.

This last weekend, Adam’s father Jim joined us in London shortly before they departed together for a three-week journey throughout Europe. We saw the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the London Philharmonic Choir perform themes from the apparently-iconic British sci-fi series Dr. Who at the Royal Albert Hall for £5 (another standing experience) — alongside thousands of rabid British fans. We then spent Sunday in Oxford punting (aka rowing) down the River Thames with some friends that Adam had made previously.


Dr. Who Promenade at the Royal Albert Hall


Punting with Adam and Jim

Recently, I’ve realized how difficult it is for me to accept the impermanence of human experience. I’ve moved around so often in these past few years that I don’t really know where home is. And friends, well, friends come and go. Certainly, transience is what gives life its value, but I can’t help but feel like I’m always clutching at people and moments to keep them from blurring into imperfect memory. Non-attachment is a faraway goal. I can’t help but hold on.

The chorus of the Tracy Chapman song goes: “I remember when we were driving, driving in your car. Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk…And I had a feeling that I belonged. And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.” Very soon, all these adventures will become just another chapter of recollections past. But having spent all night writing them down, I’ve realized that these experiences are what make me who I am. They are what I believe in, and they will always be part of me — even as they retreat from my memory.