Who are we without the presence or influence of our society? Just a blank slate, existing in a void free from opinion, free from the labels, restrictions, norms, perceptions of identity we have come to know. The search for one’s identity is an essential aspect for coming-of-age, of becoming your “true self,” of comfortably settling in one’s own skin. But my coming-of-age occurred in the middle of a global pandemic, with nearly complete isolation for half a year. I had no graduation, no celebration of the major milestones in my life – these culturally established norms that come when people reach my age. I remember celebrating my friends’ major (American) milestone of the twenty-first birthday through FaceTime calls; vastly different from what we expected after twenty-one years of anticipation and expectation.

Faced with this void of societal watchfulness, we embody a different form of self-creation. And I would argue that a new structuring of identity has occurred during our coming-of-age in a pandemic. During the past year with my only interactions with the outside world being on social media, I noticed a common theme among those who shared their personal stories: people were evolving and becoming more “themselves”. Many people either came out into their genders or sexualities, people returned to their middle school interests and hobbies they were shamed out of enjoying, the role of race in our society reached a point of long-needed critical discussion, and our understandings of mental health and neurodivergency broadened as people began to recognize and deconstruct these aspects of themselves as a result of living in this “societal void”. With this pause came the opportunity for self-reflection and turning inward, something that is often unattainable for those living in our fast-paced, western, capitalistic society. As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, we can see the outcome of all these reconstructions of identity, especially in areas like the fashion world growing more diverse, valuing individualism and self-expression now, over the once concrete fashion trends. The expression of ourselves has become more fluid and free, compared to the not-so-distant social constructs once held around gender, sexuality, and our grander concepts of being.

As we begin our gradual re-assemblage into a regularly structured society, how can we continue to support this evolution in the perception of ourselves? What opportunities might allow us this same “societal void” moment? When the performances finally take a pause, it seems a new version of ourselves is waiting to emerge. In my studies, I seek to answer how the mediums of art and design can be utilized to recreate these much-needed conditions of a “societal void”. How exactly can art, design, and making practices aid in the realization and materialization of one’s identity?