Creative Conscience Awards Commendation

GMD student Grace Monaghan entered one of her 2nd year projects to the Creative Conscience Awards 20/21 and was delighted to find that she had been shortlisted.

The Hungry Truth Project is a social design project that directly responds to the rise in food poverty in my local area. Through community co-design initiatives, I wanted to design a meaningful, culture-changing service for my local community that sparked a tough conversation about how we view poverty and the circumstances of others. To me, it was most important to give voice to people who are disempowered by the current system. The pandemic has highlighted the enormity of the issue but also the generosity of the public, providing for the Free School Meals campaign headed by Marcus Rashford. I wanted to utilise this shared frustration with the attitudes of policymakers (shoutout to my dismissive local MP!) and imagine a feasible local solution.

I applied for the Creative Conscience Awards as I recognised how important a platform it is for designers who want to want to use their creativity to make a positive change in society. I was thrilled to win a Shortlist Award for the project and have since been commissioned to produce work for my local foodbank. The response has been overwhelming and has given me the confidence to produce work that challenges people.

Although The Hungry Truth Project was the result of a university brief, the personal journey I’ve been on with this project makes it particularly special for me.”

Grace’s work was ‘Commended’ at the Awards event, where she was also inspired by talks from Sir Tim Smit (co-founder of the Eden Project); Mark Shayler (Ape consultancy and founding partner of the Do Lectures); Adah Parris (performance artist, cultural strategist and chair of Mental Health First Aid England).