Chelsea Conrad

Chelsea is a designer from Chattanooga, Tennessee who is interested in using design to connect people. She enjoys work that includes hands-on processes and community collaboration. Chelsea graduated from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2013. She recently became the Director of Creative Engagement for a civic innovation hub in Chattanooga called Causeway.

Chelsea Conrad

And We’re Off!

June 24 by Chelsea C.

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***Disclaimer: The author of this blog post had been awake for 25 hours straight while writing the following post. 

Day 1!

Camp Firebelly is off to a fierce start.

We all arrived at the Firebelly studio this afternoon, from near and far.

Colleen from Chicago.

Rachita from London.

Al from Brooklyn.

Myself (Chelsea) from Chattanooga.

Kiki from Chicago.

Kinney from Chicago.

Jonathan from Chicago.

Taylor from Seattle.

Jeremy from Toronto.

and Kyle, also from Chicago.

After some brief introductions and a leisurely lunch, we headed off to meet our super secret client. We showed up on the doorstep of a home in Chicago with absolutely no context around what we were going to be doing. We walked inside to meet our clients at the Trans Life Center, also known as TLC. TLC provides housing, legal, health and employment services to Chicago’s transgender community. We spent the next couple of hours engaging in a mutual dialogue that was both vulnerable and respectful.

We were given the opportunity to ask questions like: “Is it rude to ask what your gender is?” and “How is extreme poverty connected to being transgendered?”

And they shared experiences and frustrations like: “It’s enough. We don’t need to have our children murdered because they don’t identify with their gender. It’s enough.” Or to voice skepticism like, “I know that you are coming to serve our community, but I don’t see anyone here who looks like me.”

Many of us walked into that house unprepared. Transgender issues are not something that all of us deal with every day, and it can be difficult to know what is politically correct or accurate. We are thankful for the openness and strength of the people that we met with. We all left that house pairing a human’s face with real stories that are so often dehumanized.

Over an Ethiopian dinner with the talented Rick Valicenti, he reminded us of our role as designers – to take the powerful stories we heard at TLC, and to tell them through the lens of the people who shared them, with our own filters. Together the ten of us carry ten unique views of a powerful story we heard today. We are doing our best to communicate the reality of the trans women and men we met today in a way that promotes understanding and respect.

It’s 5:04 AM here at Camp Firebelly and we are working on our concept presentation to give to TLC in T-minus 4.5 hours. We’ll keep you updated!