Having completed a years study into data visualisation and what that might look like when there’s a distinct lack of data I’m keen to see how others engage with my work in the GSA 2025 degree show.

Though out the year I have explored the themes found in Leslie Kern’s Feminist City and Caroline Criado-Perez’s Invisible Women. Both women studied the ways infrastructure and design in general often exclude women or can be slow to meet the needs of women, not through malicious acts of exclusion per-say but in over-looking women through data, or the lack there of. Gender inclusive data is limited and often design defaults to the “average” not knowing that that average is more often than not the “average man”. This means that from the rise and tread of stairs, to the spacing of key pads at ATMs, or the routes and frequency of snow clearing services in winter, women and their general needs aren’t included, sometimes to a dangerous level.

My work this year explored the way my day to day life was impacted by this especially as a young mother with a chronic illness, the ways the system hurt me, the micro-aggressions I experienced both in the words and actions of others and the way public spaces and services failed to meet my needs through design and city planning.

I hope this work resonates with others and conveys some of the shared experiences. I hope it provokes emotion and enables discussion around how and why the data gap is so pervasive and how we navigate it as designers.