Postcards Unlocked #39  | Viktoria Johnson

My mahi as a designer has been in digital or in print. I define graphic design as visual problem solving, this is how I approach my work. My current project surrounds language, in particularly Te Reo Maori. I am making sense of the words through image, my translation of the word and how I picture them to mean. The way I’ve shown the work, adding photography and adding moving image, helps the viewer to understand my translation.

This work sits within the reo revitalisation period that we are currently in, this period brought on by colonisation. The project has its challenges but my role as a designer is to solve these.

I think my work comments on the conversation of the language still not being easily accessible.

I draw inspiration many ways, whether that be looking at art, watching film, feeling sense of place or listening to talks etc.

The inspiration for this project came through the many conversations I had with my peers, these talks shared a common, recurring theme about the loss of identity that the individual felt, as Maori.

I too could relate to this. I looked into this and discovered the report of the Te Reo Maori claim. I see this claim being my lived experience.

The more I understand the context, that being inclusive of colonisation, imperialism etc. the more this work feels important to me. It didn’t start like that though. The project is open ended, by this I mean it is always evolving. I call this project tamata reo meaning to revitalise language.

- Viktoria Johnson

The 'Postcards Unlocked' Project featured 40 artists over 40 days via Tautai’s social media platforms as we navigated new waters during the 2020 Aotearoa Lockdown.

Learn more about the project here.