visual design, branding, illustration
Project completed in Spring 2019
It’s hard to smash the glass ceiling—
when you’re banned from taking the workshop.
I spent a month researching women integral to the Bauhaus movement and its subsequent art and design innovations. Prior to this project, I could only name male designers and professors from the school and as a female design student in a program comprised of a majority female student body yet dominantly male instruction, I wanted to change that. As I searched archival documents and photographs, I began to unearth names left out of traditional textbooks: Marianna Brandt, Gunta Stoltz, Grete Stern. Wives and companions of Bauhaus professors turned out to be crucial collaborators in their husbands’ work. The more I found, the more I felt obligated to share their work while using the 100 year anniversary to ensure their names are not forgotten again.
Women’s work
Collage is traditionally referred to as a women’s craft, and that narrative was spread due to the strict restrictions placed on female students in the Bauhaus age. They could only take courses in weaving and other textiles, and many female students embraced photomontage and other mixed media. Using archival imagery, I borrowed this style to showcase the women themselves in context with their work.
A centennial can’t fix what sexism created.
