Maite (spain)

My making-mind

I set out to depict the progress of a biomedical research centre based in Southern Africa, and tried to inject some perspective into the annual evaluation reports I write for them.

For the last 8 years, I’ve been writing annually an evaluation report for a biomedical research centre based in Southern Africa. The report is intended for one of the core funders. The challenge with repetitive-annual evaluation is to not to lose perspective, and to be able to show that the challenge over that period is just part of the longer journey of the centre. The post-it cuts represent the periodic progress of the centre, sometimes steady and solid, sometimes fast and big, sometimes difficult to define, sometimes progress splits in two when the benefit is shared by other institutions. And finally, our eyes on the prize, it is for the centre to fly far - a big balloon. I paint in green the NET of people that make it possible. And in blue, the rain drops = funding from external donors that water the project and make it possible. It´s all part of the process, evolution, progress. It’s a long-term project. Yet, there are immediate benefits for people accessing the clinical programs (represented as little red hearts), e.g. getting better health services thanks to the studies, having access to institutions, plus the thousands of people employed by the Centre. There are also uncertainties as well, but I didn’t paint them, the important bit for me is the progress line and all the ingredients feeding it, and benefiting from it.

Capulana keyring holder

I also made a Capulana keyring holder. It has the shape of a house because it is for a friend who just renovated an old house, and it is made of Capulana, fabric from Mozambique, because that’s where we met, and I plan to give it to her tomorrow at her house warming paella :)