Themester

BFA student Mireya Melero discusses her inspiration to making her Themester Identity and Identification poster, noting on her previous projects such as her tarot card set. 

 

Identity and Identification is a very big topic. I was curious where that sort of inspiration came from, and especially where you started with that? 

I remember when everybody came in to brief us on the topic and what [Themester] was looking for, and at first I remember being so overwhelmed because it is such a big topic. And of course, everyone’s perspective is going to be different, so the first thing I did was look up what could fall under that category… thinking about what that would mean to me and what it would mean to other people. So when I started I knew, right off the bat, that I didn’t want to have any kind of actual human representation in it; I didn’t want to express anyone with a specific skin tone or specific gender. I wanted it to be very abstract in that way, so that anyone could be able to identify with that. One of the first things that I thought of when I did a lot of introspection about it is that there are so many boxes that you check off when you think about identity and identification. I didn’t want to focus on just one thing, I wanted something that could make you think about spectrums and different boxes you can check when thinking about your own identity. I just really wanted to convey that introspection.

 

Hey! How exciting is it that you’ll get to see your artwork all over the place at IU? 

I’m so.. I’m nervous and I’m so excited! This would be the first time that any of my work is out like that. I’m.. nervous. [laughs] This past semester is my second semester in the BFA program for graphic design, but I've been taking classes all four years— I'm a senior. So this is my first time.. getting accepted for anything or having someone go "Hey, this is pretty cool! We’re going to use this!" 

It was scary at first, and now it makes me very excited. It’s weird. I’m not sure [what makes it scary], I think it’s more like nerves of knowing that so many people are going to see my piece. It’s not too personal to me, but I think it would be the first time my work is mass-produced, for lack of a better word. I’m like "ooh, so many people are going to see it!" I am really excited. 

 

You’re on your way out as a senior, so where do you see yourself next? 

I think I would like to keep playing with the topic of identity and identification; I really enjoyed the process of thinking how I wanted it and how I wanted other people to see it too, and how I wanted everybody to see themselves in it. I think I would really want to continue doing work like that, and maybe do some personal identity work for me. I think freelance work would be really cool to work on.