This briefs aim was to explore the themes of self, identity and communication under the critical lens of ‘Boundary Objects’, a sociological theory. With the challenge of producing a design artefact that would act as a boundary object for South Shields and be able to communicate an idea derived from the location to a specific audience of my choice.
South Shields is a land born on and, in recent times, has experienced growing tensions between locals and newcomers/migrants. From this, I created SOUTH SHIELDS TOGETHER, an exhibition celebrating the community’s similarities that they are all, in one form or another, descendant or actually are a migrant to the area. I wanted to communicate that living in South Shields and calling it home automatically places you in the community, whether you were born here or not. Community is a united concept that really is not dependant on people’s background but more on a solid, functioning relationship. The identity created for the exhibition embraces the past and present, echoing the evolving nature of migration in the area. The exhibition makes use of posters and personal invites to build community interest and allow them to scan to register their interest. The exhibition then creates a South Shields passport showcasing a person’s history with migration, weather longer family stories or individual cases alone. Having the passport wrapped in one visual identity helps to solidify the idea that everyone living in South Shields is a united community. The exhibition itself is held locally at South Shields museum, where it is central to the location of the community. The larger migration stories of groups, such as the Romans, are told in a timeline on the wall while below are display cases full of the passports, open on various stories from the community. To help prompt cross-social engagement, the participants are given a custom stamp with their name, origin of birth and number on so while they read stories in other passports, they can stamp pages of the stories they relate to and by doing so, creating new relationships within the community. Once the exhibition is done, all who registered receive their passport as a keepsake. It is through this social interaction and providing a platform to discuss and celebrate the similarities while educating on local migration that I hope this exhibition would be able to re-united the community along with removing community tensions.
