Ethnicity in London

By: Daniel Iván Jiménez P.

Ethnicity in London is a participatory and immersive installation that invites people to recognize each other and visualize diversity in a different way.

Challenging the traditional practices regarding ethnicity, this project recognizes ethnic identity considering that:

• It is something subjective, placed in a specific time, and of a changing nature.
• There is no consensus about what is an ethnic group, beyond the general definition.
• The membership to an ethnic group is self-defined.

 
OUTCOME

This installation consists of 3 stages:

•   Introduction to the project

•   Wall of ethnic groups

•   Interactive Projection Space

 
 



Finally, individuals have the choice to engage in this collaborative project by filling out the ethnicity form.
Their ethnicity will be, first in the brick wall and later integrated into the broader ethnicity wall.

 
VISUAL LANGUAGE

About the Colours

In this project, every color used represents one ethnic group, chosen by one person in several ethnicity workshops carried out in London in 2023. Here, people could face an empty form and choose, draw and write the ethnic groups they considered they belonged to.  

Every colour used was taken from the colors that people chose to represent themselves on the ethnicity questionnaire.

Draw of a participant of the workshop  Digitalization example

Hence, each color holds its own meaning, these can be visible on the walls of ethnic groups. Individuals may choose green to represent a particular country, and these distinct choices are displayed here. It's noteworthy that the same shade of green may be embraced by multiple individuals, and each person can attribute unique meanings and associations to the color.



About the installation

Every brick appears and disappears depending on the number of people in front of the projection. Making this an interactive installation, that invites people to recognize each other and all the ethnic groups that represent a super-diverse society as London’s.
 
1 person in the room = 1 brick

DATA COLLECTION

The main source of data used was the ethnicity form used for the unstructured workshop:


For this  project, we had two types of information:

• Images of the drawings
  
• Text containing the names of the ethnic groups.
  

More than 300 colors and ethnic groups were displayed, on the ethnicity wall, and in the interactive projection

DATA PROCESSING

Images:

The data was first digitalized using a regular camera, then, 50 samples of the image were taken to extract the colors of the image.


After that, every brick was created using these colors. 

Software used: Python (Pil & others), TouchDesigner


Text:

For the handwriting text, we used first tesseract, and diverse tools, and finally, a human revision of the results.

Software used: Adobe (Illustrator & Indesign), Python, Tesseract



Installation

For the interactive part of the installation, data from a camera was processed with an OpencCV Artificial Intelligence algorithm.


Software used: Python (OpenCV, Tensorflow), Linux.
Physical requirements:

• Raspberry Pi 5
  
• Camera
• Laser Projector preferably/ TV / LED screen

DESIGN PROCESS

Study of different representations of ethnicity in society

Some of the images used in this specific process were sourced from various authors and media. While these images were relevant to our research and design, it is important to note that we do not claim intellectual property rights for them.