Welcome to Sustainability is Gay exhibit ! I have created an interactive digital exhibition, inspired by my research into the relationship between gender and sustainable practices. In September last year, I set out to see if there was any connection with how gender, and specifically masculinity, might be affecting sustainable practices or behavior. I wanted to understand if certain biases associated with masculinity were having an impact on sustainability. I created this digital interactive exhibition as a platform to engage audiences to learn about this topic. 

 

I saw a tweet and originally was amused by the premise of sustainability being gay. In this context, it was a joke, but it alluded to a more pressing issue of how anything that might challenge a man's masculinity could be labelled “gay”. A study found that men are less likely to engage in sustainable practices because they’re don’t want to be labelled as gay. I wanted to understand why this was and how we got here. The exhibit is comprised of two “rooms”, each room with writing inspired by my research, and an interactive component to critically engage with the content. 

 

The tweet partially inspired the title of my project “Sustainability is Gay”, but the main purpose of the title was to comment on the absurdity of how sustainabilty, a theoretically gender-neutral topic, could be gendered. And how the gendering of sustainability to that of a feminine nature, would challenge masculinity to the extent it would create a reluctance to engage with it. The design identity was inspired by the classic 90’s barbie font and color. When I think of Barbies, “girlie” is the first thing that comes to mind. The irony is that Barbie is so much more than that, a global icon if you will. Andy Warhol has painted her, the Louvre devoted an entire exhibit to her, and more recently became a YouTuber where she discusses issues like how to deal with bullies, empowerment, and sadness. The point is something that was stereotypically branded as feminine and one-dimensional, is in fact much more. I believe once sustainability isn’t similarly branded as one dimensional, it can have a similar evolution and will encourage people to engage in more sustainable practices.