*Graduate Thesis* 

When I began thinking about my graduate thesis, I knew I was interested in exploring the intersection of evolving interactive media and its potential for learning. I chose history, in particular art history, as a subiect to explore. Designers have adapted and evolved alongside the technology of the era, obligated to learn and master the shifting tools of their trade in order to stay relevant in the field. On top of this, having an understanding of the historical canon is intrinsic to being a modern designer, or at least a good one.

However, unlike the tools we design with, the way history is taught and discussed never seems to evolve. The methods for teaching the humanities in general resist any change, which becomes painfully evident when required to be taken alongside more "interactive" modern modes of education. As a female designer who has studied at both a research university and now at an art school, I believe the utter lack of any attempt to establish an adapted historical canon reflective of current times and a modern method for teaching the humanities inside classrooms, in 2023, is unacceptable.

Academics in general resist admitting that history is not untouchable, and can be boiled down to what is a factual but ultimately constructed narrative. One that was constructed primarily by the men of that time, with traceable remnants of misogyny and racism lingering in the elevation of the narratives we still uphold today - I know, we all (pretty much) know this by now! It's not new! But while it is known and generally accepted, very little has been done with this information - little has changed about what is being taught, or the way it is being taught. History itself cannot be changed but we must go beyond simply acknowledging the biases of what is regarded as essential historical knowledge and actually change something about it. Bearing in mind the increasing presence of technology in classrooms and in our lives I believe the way we approach teaching history should be changing in tandem with modern technology. History after all is a form of storytelling, and just because it is a presentation of facts from the past should not negate any form of modern modes of engagement.

My thesis is exploring the intersection of all these things graphic design, technology, and telling feminocentric history. Technology-wise, I am specifically interested in the potential of video games as a learning tool. Video games are a medium which has a great deal of untapped potential as an interactive storytelling technique for learning, and itself is still a heavily gendered area often resistant to the perspective of women. My work hinges on exploring different methodologies telling the story of one female artist - the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentieschi, all designed in ways that would be considered an interactive learning experience.


While you could say my thesis is "about" Artemisia, I'm really just using her story as a tool to design and rapidly iterate on different ideas addressing how history is taught and presented. I explore what it could look like specifically to incorporate" gaming" and design into modernizing how a historical narrative is presented aesthetically while highlighting the constructed nature of canons in general. Through my thesis I hope to show that the challenges a woman painter was facing in 1616 is not disconnected or irrelevant from the way women artists are navigating the world now, and that there are endless stories of such women to still be told and many, many unexplored modern in-teractive ways to tell them. The feminocentric nature of my work was a natural evolution from my choice to research Artemisia's life. I realized Artemisia is a small piece of a much larger puzzle, and there is a very real issue with the lack of general knowledge about female historical figures. I am exploring telling the story of a female artist and thus art history through my work, but I believe this way of approaching teaching and presenting the past and the presence of women is also scalable to other areas of historical studies.

For my Artemisia-based projects, I used Mary Gerard's excellent recent biography - Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe as a basis for developing the narratives and information. I want to be clear that by bringing the stories of women artists to the forefront I am not discrediting the existing art historical or design canon - the intention of my work is to show how the range of work that is being upheld and elevated can be expanded to be more representative for practicing artists and designers in a visual way that is fitting for the 21st century.