We spoke to Lauren Dewar, Rory Bain, Andrine Floegstad and Rachel Brady about their 2023 degree show projects.
Date posted
23 May 2023
13:43
Lauren Dewar | Friendly Fire
Created by graphic design student Lauren Dewar, Friendly Fire is a boardgame that looks at tackling gender-based harassment in online gaming.
The game, alongside a series of posters, advocates for male gamers to be active participants as and when women are targeted with abuse by male gamers online.
In the physical board game, users choose their own storyline and pick scenarios experienced by female gamers. Lauren has created scenario cards, response cards and outcome cards with the aim that both men and women play the women’s scenarios so that men call out toxic abuse as it occurs – rather than staying silent.
The game sees participants roll a dice for different outcomes and to progress around the board, or not – just like a woman’s experience online.
Lauren is a gamer herself, and has first-hand experienced this type of harassment while playing online – specifically in first-person shooter games.
After the 2023 Degree Show, Lauren hopes to take the game around various societies within Edinburgh Napier – and further afield – inviting people to play and learn more about what they can do to call this behaviour out and make online gaming an enjoyable space for all.
Rory Bain | Ill Defined
Created by Rory Bain, Ill Defined is a project dealing with the experiences of those with chronic illnesses.
Interested in counterculture, Rory’s work aims to ultimately make people laugh. He takes influence from artists like David Shrigley to use his illustrations and animations as conversation starters around the topic of chronic illness and what it means to those affected by it.
His Degree Show work exhibits a real bed in a room with projections of his hand-drawn animations and illustrations, along with posters and a zine.
The project is called `Ill defined’ because Rory believes that chronic illness is impossible to define. “People are defined by their illness but the illness itself is hard to define”, he said.
He also describes his drawings as `cursed wee things’ - weird characters that are disturbing but not frightening and that aim to garner responses from those affected by chronic illness, and those lucky enough not to have experienced one.
Andrine Floegstad | `Tizzy’s Guide to Eco-Anxiety’
Created by student Andrine Floegstad, ‘Tizzy’s guide to Eco-Anxiety’ is an educational kit designed to help children navigate through their feelings of eco-anxiety by looking at environmental protection, climate change, and self-reflection.
The kit teaches children emotional regulation and mindfulness, with practices such as breathing exercises and visualisation techniques, to help then feel calmer in the face of environmental concerns.
Andrine’s project revolves around a bright, fun and friendly character called Tizzy, who takes her name from the phrase ‘being in a tizzy’. The character’s main role is to help support children who may be feeling overwhelmed by the ongoing climate crisis through an educational eco-anxiety kit.
The kit – which includes a bag, activity book, mindfulness posters, seed sachet and information booklet for parents – is for 5-11 year-olds.
After the Degree Show, Andrine hopes to develop the kit further as a general educational resource for people to engage with, even if not experiencing anxiety regarding climate and environmental issues. Getting the pack within primary schools is also an avenue being pursued.
Rachel Brady | Women of the Match
Created by Rachel Brady, Women of the Match looks at the inequalities within the sport of ice hockey.
Rachel plays for the Edinburgh University all girls ice hockey team at Murrayfield – one of only two female teams in Scotland.
There is a rule in the sport that women cannot use contact – but the men can. Player of the match still gets called ‘man of the match’. Women still play in kit designed for males.
These facts and more are displayed in Rachel’s project through a series of prints and via video as she aims to raise awareness of the progress still required in the female version of the sport.