Ahmad Barclay

Office for National Statistics

Visualizing Palestine: Pursuing Narrative Change for Social Justice

Panel: Resistance

This talk offers a practitioner's view on the evolution of Visualizing Palestine (VP). VP was born in 2012 based on the idea that "viral" infographics could help to drive narrative change and real-world change on the issue of Palestine/Israel.

12 years on from its founding, this talk—from a founding partner in the project—will reflect on some of the early ideas and assumptions that drove the project, how these were challenged and re-shaped through both successes and failures, and where the project sits today in the context of the Gaza genocide.

The key themes touched upon will include:

  • Learning how to work in a medium that requires multi-disciplinary skills.

  • Developing a design language that can instill trust and authority.

  • Facing a rapid evolution in (social) media and how people consume it.

  • Understanding network effects and that narrative change is ultimately all about people.

Ahmad Barclay is an architect and UX designer engaged in projects involving data visualization, visual storytelling and learning through play. He has led award winning infographics projects as a founding partner with Visualizing Impact, and initiated Palestine Open Maps, an open data project supported by Mozilla and Creative Commons. Ahmad currently heads up the Advanced Data Formats team at the Office for National Statistics (ONS)