Johanna Manz – Gender-sensitive language

Gender-sensitive language

Pop-up exhibition

exhibition design, editorial, campaign, UI & UX design,
graduation project / October 2020 - February 2021
with Susanne Büchele

As a result of our bachelor thesis about gender-sensitivity within the german language, we developed a participatory pop-up exhibition. It invites the visitors to approach this rather controversial topic, contribute their own opinions, and experiment with formulations that take everyone into account.

Gender-sensitive language is not only about making women visible but also about including non-binary people linguistically. Whether we need a faire language or not is being discussed for some years now and often results in heated debates. Not everyone is equally informed, and prejudices make it harder to find a fair solution. The pop-up-exhibition “Mitgemeint – Jeder meint nicht alle” opens up this discourse.

<-- You can read more about this particular situation in the german language (in English) here

<-- This video is the starting point for visitors, but can also be an opener for a conversation about the topic, independent from the exhibition.

The title “Mitgemeint – Jeder meint nicht alle” means literally translated “Included – everyone (masculine) doesn’t include all”.

To enable as many people as possible access to the exhibition, it takes place in buildings owned by public authorities or non-profit operators. We want to give especially people with ambivalent opinions a chance to approach this topic. Throughout our research, we realised there is a need for places to discuss and more information, no matter how much a person already knows about this topic.

<-- Participatory posters give a first impression and announce the exhibition in the respective location.

The main goal of the exhibition is to give the visitors an impulse through new insights and perspectives to reflect on their language habits and their consequences. Rather than stating strict rules, we are aiming to evoke an open dialogue where everyone can take part.

Since the Covid-19 Pademic started in spring 2020, we didn't have the possibility to show the exhibition in Germany. Non the less, we wanted to build a part of the exhibition at least. For now, we build the main parts in the original size. To get the idea, of the whole exhibtion I used Cinema4d to develope renderings.

<-- The different modules of the exhibition can be rearranged depending on the space they’re in. This rendering shows all modules of the exhibition.

The visitors get invited to contribute their opinions and thoughts in several sections throughout the exhibitions with stickers and sticky dots. -->

<-- Interaction is in our opinion important, which is why we created guessing cards, which can be turned around.

<-- The newspaper gives a more profound insight into the debate and addresses different aspects like scientific analysis of the effects of language on our gender perceptions, politics, or how other languages deal with this issue.

The newspaper has a lot of content, which is why the visitors can take it home and read it where and when ever they want. -->

Exchanging opinions and learning more about the background is one side of the story. Being able to use gender-sensitive language right, is the other.

The different gender-sensitive options can be tested and compared in an interactive tablet application. In order to give everyone the option to use it where and when ever, the "text lab" is also accessible on the website.

<-- The different gender-sensitive options can be tested and compared in an interactive tablet application.

The website informs also about the next location and serves as an archive of the opinions visitor of previous exhibitions contributed. -->

All the research, analysis, experiments, design decisions and the implementation process are recorded in our bachelor documentation.

One of the most important parts for us was the analysis of the typographic possiblities. As visual designers, we have the opportunity to change the way people use words. Our approach was on the one hand using what we already have and experiment with it. On the other hand we wanted to focus on the meaning. Through this process, we developed a ligation which connects the gender and instead of seperating them. We included this version also in our application.