Blood Equity: Visualizing the energy that goes into managing your period, day to month to year to lifetime

• Dana Ragouzeos (San Jose State University)

Participants in this workshop will experiment with different ways of visualizing data on the energy girls, women, and those who menstruate put into the preparation, management, and concealment of having a period. Energy, in this context, is defined as physical, emotional, and psychological energy that individuals put forth from the moment of their first period until their last. This energy is actively expressed on top of the energy needed for basic daily living for days to weeks each month, over decades of life. We will work with survey data of individuals aged 11-75 who have first-hand experience managing their own periods. This data includes stories as well as quantitative measures of the energy they each put forth during each cycle over a lifetime. We will use metaphors for energy amounts, such as the energy it takes to cook for and feed yourself, brush your teeth, and manage the flu, to invite non-menstruators to empathize with this common yet often invisible energy expression. During the workshop, individual participants will choose their data points and work through iterative rounds to create energy visualizations that, when put together, tell stories.

Information Design for Political & Grassroots Movements

• Jessica Bellamy (People United for Social Housing Louisville (PUSH Louisville))

The goal of this workshop is to teach attendees basic conscious and responsible, strategies for motivating viewers towards action, and some compositional design principles to create information graphics for grassroots/political movements. This session will begin with a short presentation with visual examples. It will then move into some quick drafting games to practice basic design techniques. Attendees will then be given time to draft infographics and it will conclude with a group discussion of some of the drafted works to further explore strategies and opportunities to elevate the works. Attendees will benefit from this workshop by having the opportunity to get a crash course in conscious and responsible principles in design and strategies for motivating people to action. This is also an opportunity to practice quick drafting techniques to quickly move towards constructive dialogue to elevate the work. Attendees need not have design or data storytelling experience to join.