Lineage in Translation: Traces
Theoratical anchors
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress; co-investigator pedagogy
Studio Project
Students develop a single project that exists in three connected forms: a one-page interactive website, a printable poster, and a small artist book. Beginning from the word traces, students gather photographs and move through six weeks of exercises in alt-text writing, composition, motion, and book-making. The three forms share a single visual system but use the affordances of each medium to extend or reframe the work.
Pedagocal Approach
The assignment is taught as shared inquiry. I develop my own Traces project alongside students, which shifts the studio from a hierarchy of expertise to a community of investigators working on related questions
Insights
When the instructor practices alongside students, critique becomes a conversation between practitioners. Students surface difficulty earlier and ask sharper questions because the difficulty is also visible in my work. The assignment reveals that translating a single visual idea across three media is not a technical exercise but a methodological one. Each form imposes its own rules of attention, and what survives translation is what the work was actually about.
Student work samples
01
The Psyche of a Women’s Restroom
Abstract - This project explores the psychology behind the culture that forms within women’s restrooms. Using graffiti found in women’s restrooms in State College, PA, it examines the range of expression, serious, humorous, and vulgar, that emerges in these spaces, where the absence of the male presence allows for more open and candid interactions.
I Know You, I Just Can’t Picture You
02
My project explores aphantasia, the inability to form mental images. It focuses on something most people rarely question, which is the ability to picture someone in their mind. The viewer is guided to visualize someone close to them, a process that feels natural and almost automatic. As the experience continues, that expectation is challenged by introducing a perspective where visualization is not possible. This contrast highlights how differently people can experience memory and connection in ways that are not always visible. Overall, the work encourages viewers to pause and consider an ability they may take for granted, while gaining a deeper awareness of how others may experience the world internally.
03
1 Moon, Infinite Universes
This project explores the gap between objective reality and the filtered nature of human perception. While the moon is a universal constant, it serves as a blank canvas for every human being. Through eleven distinct personas, this project documents how various different internal states physically distort the world we see. By pairing narrative logs of different personas with these visual interpretations, this project illustrates how our minds project personal baggage onto our surroundings. It emphasizes that imagination is not just a distraction, but a tool that reveals personal truths that reality cannot, proving that no two people ever truly see the same thing.
Set in Jetbrains
Created in Framer
© Anjana Padmakumar