In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, except for the flag of Australia, the Aboriginal flag was permitted to be flown during the Olympic Games as well.[1] Harold Thomas, who designed this flag which is conveying “concepts of great profundity for Indigenous Australians.”[2], undoubtedly achieved great success. This blog will discuss how the aboriginal designers influence the Australian society.

The Aboriginal flag is divided horizontally into two parts, the upper half is black and lower is red. A yellow circle sits at the center of the flag. These three colors symbolize the unique meaning: black represents the Aboriginal people of Australia; yellow is symbolic of the Sun, the giver of life and protector; red represents the red ochre. As stated by Mathieu Gallois, “the flag describes the relationship of people to land, land to culture, and culture to identity.” [3]

Harold Thomas was born in an indigenous family in 1947. He was in the margin of Australia. At the age of six, he was taken to the Alice Spring away from his family. Since then he lived in white institutions and white culture context. These two different culture contexts derived his thoughts about the Aboriginal flag.[4] Within the social context when the government of Australian start working on the affairs like authority for women, social justice and equality,etc, aboriginal artists were aroused the goals to propagate the aboriginal culture in the marginal part of Australian, to claim that they were part of the Australian culture. As Tony Fury said, “A nonuniversal design history is not simply an additional or supplemental approach within a plurality of positions. Rather, it is a fundamental challenge to the nature and authority of the current Eurocentric models of history writing. It will not be based on the same agenda, objects, rhetoric, or concerns.”[5]

What Harold Thomas was expressing through the Aboriginal flag was the identity, political activist agendas and ideals for the displaced Indigenous people.[6] The Aboriginal flag is not for claiming against colonization or the land for aboriginal people. The flag was a way for aboriginal culture to be accepted by the society. Whereas, “Australians do not know or understand Aboriginal culture; or, more specifically, the flag’s non-status as art reflects a poor understanding of the role of culture in Indigenous activism.”[7] It is understandable that the flag cannot be considered as a piece of art work without exchanging the culture. “Products’ beauty emanates from the user’s conscious reflection and experience influenced by knowledge, learning and culture.” [8]Even if the Aboriginal flag is not a product, the beauty of aboriginal culture cannot be conveyed unless people are taught “a body of knowledge and critical perspective”.

Not only Harold Thomas, but also many other aboriginal designers are working on this in obscurity. The Aboriginal flag is undoubtedly the most influential one of them while it still has not been fully accepted by the Australians. How do you think about the aboriginal culture? Is it possible to fully combine the aboriginal culture with the Australian society?

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[1] Aboriginal flag, The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/aboriginal-flag

[2] Mathieu Gallois, “The Aboriginal flag as art”, Australian Aboriginal Studies, (Fall 2016): p46+

[3] Ibid；

[4] Ibid；

[5] Tony Fry,” A Geography of Power: Design History and Marginality “, Design Issues, (Autumn 1989) ,29

[6] Mathieu Gallois, “The Aboriginal flag as art”, Australian Aboriginal Studies, (Fall 2016): p46+

[7] Ibid；

[8] Despina Christoforidou, Elin Olander, Anders Warell and Lisbeth Svengren Holm, “Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling”, The Design Journal ,188

After seeing all three exhibitions, “Designing Women” left a deep impression on me.  The exhibition was divided into four parts: Leadership, Community, Teamwork and Research, revealing how female designers contributing themselves to the design industry which was considered to be Patriarchal. This blog is researching about how the female designers influenced the gender equality in design industry, starting with the artwork “Security pass, access all areas” by Susan Cohn in 1989.[1]

The Using of the red color delights the viewers because the security pass is usually in black and white which is clear but boring. So the designer added the red cover on it, with a little bit gold, to make it more visually enjoyable.  The hollows on the red cover were carefully arranged.  Those three horizontal bars might appear on the traditional security pass for the information while the dots are placed in a dynamic way. The contrast between them is attractive. Other than this, the word “access all areas” on the back of the security pass, which is partly covered implies that the function of being a security pass for your identity is no longer important. It is more like an ornament.

So we can see that the differences between the designs for mass production and designs by female are obvious. In the work “Security pass, access all areas”, the functionality was separated from the object. Susan Cohn made it more like jewelry which suited women better. Women designers would create products in a unique perspective for female.[2] “Beginning in the early 1980s, feminist research on medicine (reproduction and contraceptive technologies), engineering (domestic technologies and housework), and architecture (domestic space, urban planning, motorways) has explored how technology created by men is in accord with their interests in a way that excludes women, whose values, interests, and needs are fundamentally different from those of men”.[3] In such a patriarchal society at that time, women were placed in margin.  According to Tony Fry, “Design history on and in the margins [the “other” story and (her)story of (his)story] is a different kind of history.” [4]Because being in the different positions, people will start to think in an unusual way. The female designer leaders do make progress on gender equality and still continue on it.  

Nevertheless, whether designing in a female perspective to address women could fundamentally improve the gender equality?  “Due to women’s omission from the decision-making processes that shape them, such products also strengthen and reproduce the stereotypical images of women in society.”[5]  The gender equality cannot be reached by only producing the women perspective designs. The more vital point is to promote the education of “technology is gender-neutral”.[6]  The mistake is that the designs on textile and graphic are still seen as a supposedly “feminism” design which is actually depreciation. [7] Not until the design subjects turn in to gender-neutral do the female designers be accepted by the whole design industry.

What kind of design might reach the real gender equality?

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[1] “Security pass, access all areas”，National Gallery of Victoria,
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/77233/

[2] Pinar Kaygan，” Gender, Technology, and the Designer’s Work: A Feminist Review, ” Design and Culture (April 2016)

[3] Ibid

[4] Tony Fry,” A Geography of Power: Design History and Marginality “, Design Issues, (Autumn 1989) ,29

[5] Pinar Kaygan，” Gender, Technology, and the Designer’s Work: A Feminist Review, ” Design and Culture (April 2016)

[6] Ibid

[7] Jenny Lewis and Margaret Bruce , ” Women designers— is there a gender trap? “, Design Studies,( April 1990 )