The Final Degree Projects Balisa and Orwell have won the Isola Design Awards, an initiative born within the framework of Milan Design Week to give a voice to emerging designers.
Balisa, by Bachelor in Design student Ariadna Sala and tutored by Danae Esparza, is a therapeutic tool that accompanies and supports the healing process of adult survivors of child sexual abuse. The project consists of a series of pieces that facilitate communication between the psychologist and the victim through the representation in volume of the emotions experienced during the healing process.
Each emotion is linked to a piece and these are stacked and form a totem that the person takes home in order to follow their emotional management independently and delimit a safety zone. Unlike other issues related to psychological therapy, there are currently no tools available to help manage the trauma caused by child sexual abuse. For this reason, the student has counted on the collaboration of survivors and psychologists specialised in the field during the research and experimentation process and also in the design of this tool.
This project raises a reflection on the role of design in providing resources for the improvement of this problem and, at the same time, contributes to the visibility and communication of this taboo subject for society, necessary actions for its eradication.