FIDELIA IBEKWE
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2022 dataviz projects

Yet another year of very creative dataviz outputs. I'm always stunned and amazed by my student's creativity. Read on to discover how data can be turned into delicious food displays that we even get to enjoy! 
​Happy viewing & Bon appetit!
The taste of maternal mortality in the USA

This beautiful data cuisine project portrayed a very grave topic: women's maternal mortality. When discussions on the prevalence or increase of maternal mortality are brought up, it is usually in reference to countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle east. However, according to statistics, the steady increase of pregnancy related deaths  in the past 2 decades in the Unites States is quite significant in comparison to other “first” world countries. Initially, the students wished to represent the mortality rates in the European Union but in the course of their research, decided to widen their scope to other high-income countries, in particular, the US. Given its history of inequalities, the students wished to investigate how systemic racism, class and social status played out in women's maternal mortality in the US. The questions they wished to answer were the following;
  • What is the percentage of pregnancy related deaths per 100,000 live births each year? From 1987 to 2018?
  • What are the percentages of pregnancy related deaths for the different racial categories in the US?
  • What are the causes of these deaths? Are they purely health related or could there be other factors?
  • Is there a link between the causes and the racial categories?
  • What is being done to decrease the incidences of these deaths?
Data was gathered from the US Center for Disease Control (CDC). It showed an increase from 7.2 deaths in 1987 to 17.3 deaths (per 100,000 live births) and revealed huge disparities between women of colour in comparison to Caucasians. Between 2016–2018, the ratio in maternal mortality according to ethnic categories were:
  • 41.4% Black persons
  • 26.5% American Indian or Alaska Native persons
  • 14.1%  Asian or Pacific Islander persons
  • 13.7% White persons
  • 11.2% Hispanic persons
  • 9.5% multiple race persons.
Even more frustrating is the fact that the CDC stated that most of these deaths were probably preventable. 
  • Designing the women's mortality cake
Like most unconventional approaches to scholarly or academic research presentations, creativity is brought to the fore front and very often it helps us break down seemingly complex information into tangible, original ideas that everyone can relate to. Drawing inspiration from the work of data cuisine experts Moritz Stefaner and Susanne Jaschko, the students had the bright idea to bake and decorate a visually stunning cake to convey these sombre statistics. The project required accuracy and careful planning in order to successfully represent the data sets as well as enjoy the delicious dessert we had created. Two factors were showcased on the cake: the causes of maternal mortality and the ethnic groups affected by it. The round shaped cake was cut carefully into sections to represent the percentages of racial categories in maternal mortality rates in the US.  Different toppings were to represent the different causes.  The cake was as beautiful to look at as it was delicious to taste. 
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​​In comparison to other high-income countries, the US records deaths each year from causes that are being tackled effectively in several countries in Europe and in the UK. Even more disheartening is the fact that racial categories could determine the type of care, support and eventual fate of many people who want have children in the US. The accompanying video explains in more details how the women's maternal mortality cake was created and decorated. After treating the class to a very engaging presentation of this grave topic, the scrumptious cake was enjoyed by all.
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How geographically diverse is the EJCAM population in 2022?​

Marseille is a cosmopolitan city and an important entry port from the Mediterranean, where diversity is the watchword. This project wanted to check whether this diversity of provenance was reflected in the population of students and staff of the School of Journalism and Communication (EJCAM) where the students were enrolled in. The questions the dataviz project aimed to showcase were as follows:
  • What is the geographical distribution of the members of EJCAM according to city, country or continent?
  • Do they come from an urban or rural environment?
  • How many kilometres did they travel to be at EJCAM today?
  • Is EJCAM as cosmopolitan and diverse as the city of Marseille in which it is based?
To collect the data from the members, it was necessary to make the project design participatory and engaging, the students printed out a map of all the countries in the world on a scale large enough to take up all the space on a table. They cut out the contours of each country, and with a black felt-tip pen, followed the contours of the cut-out countries, again country by country to obtain a nice, realistic rendering. They added an additional map of France on a larger scale, as they suspected that there would be a higher percentage of participants from France. EJCAM members were invited to place a pin on their country of origin on the map and note their geographical location on a form.
The map was pasted on a board in the hallway of the school in a strategic location, in front of the coffee machine and an open space with tables where people usually sit to eat their lunch, thus ensuring maximum participation. The exhibit was left there for a week in October 2022. A total of 92 people participated. The photos and video below show the process and the resulting dataviz.​
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Unsurprisingly, the data gathered showed that the majority of EJCAM members in October 2022 were from Europe (65,62%) of which the majority (83.61%) were from France, followed by 3% from Germany, 3.28% from Spain, and 1.64% from the other six countries: Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Poland. 27.08% of those who participated were from Africa and mostly from the Maghreb which is not surprising given its colonial ties France and the continuing relations. Surprisingly, Nigeria, an anglophone country that was formerly under British colony came in the third position with 11.54% while Senegal came fourth with 7.69%. The other countries represented were Tunisia, Cameroon, Madagascar, Comoros, Burkina Faso and Burundi. Asia represented 3.12% of the population of which 33.33% were from Vietnam. Only 3 people from the Americas (United States, West Indies and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon).
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A second graph placed people according to whether they came from from urban and rural areas. The results showed that the vast majority lived in urban areas.
This participatory Urban Dataviz project showed, in a creative manner, a fact that would not have been immediately apparent: the diversity in terms of the places of origin of the people who work, teach and study at the EJCAM. Before this project, many believed that the vast majority of people at the school were from Marseilles. But through data gathering and this visual display, this preconceived idea was factually disproved. In the end, only three people were from Marseille. The majority came from the four corners of France and over 30 people came from continents other than Europe (Africa, America, Asia). It was brought home to the students just how many people had travelled across borders and oceans to pursue their studies at the EJCAM. Students were thus made aware of the multicultural and international setting they were evolving in and what it entailed in terms of openness and tolerance.

What do EJCAM students drink?​

This project sought to visualise the drinking habits of students at the EJCAM. More precisely, it sought to gather data in a participatory manner to answer the following question: "When you go out, what do you drink most?
For the set-up, students wrote the instructions for the participants on cardboard cut-outs. They used transparent plastic cups to display different types of drinks. Each drink has a different colour, in line with its actual colour: beer was represented by a yellow syrup, wine a dark pink syrup and for soft drinks a green syrup. Three empty 50cl glasses were furnished to participants and around each of them a dozen shot glasses filled with syrup of the colour corresponding to the drink.
Participants were asked to fill the glass corresponding to their answer: beer, wine or soft drinks, and the aim was to illustrate the results by collecting different fluids. 
Because of the nature of the material (glass and plastic cup and liquids), the experiment was run only during one afternoon and about 55 people participated, mainly students.
Out of a total of 55 participants: 27% drank wine, 36.5% drank beer and 36.5% drank soft drinks.

These findings should be taken with a grain of salt, as it represents only 55 EJCAM students, out of a total of more than 250. Unfortunately, for health and practical reasons, the experiment could not be carried out on a larger scale, but it can be concluded that 63.5% of the 55 students at EJCAM drink alcohol, which is just over half. Beer is the dominant alcohol (36.5% compared with 27% for wine), but the proportion of soft drinks remains high.​

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Information Visualisation

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  • Home
  • About
  • Teaching
    • Arts-informed pedagogy
    • Learning by drawing
    • From drawing to storytelling
    • Total Arts exhibition >
      • 2018 Vintage >
        • Tree of life
        • Rwandan Genocide
        • Maya
        • Icarus
        • Molecules
        • Doctor
      • 2019 Vintage >
        • Zone 51
        • The Fire At The Lubrizol Factory In Rouen
        • The Myth of the Martians
        • Robot
        • Insubmersible Titanic
      • 2020 Systemic racism & Covid19 >
        • Hashtag power BLM
        • Mythomaniavirus
        • Boycott Power
        • Wheels of systemic racism
        • COVID-19 and the media
        • The systemic loops of systemic racism
      • 2021 Vintage >
        • Women's rights
        • The Truth Party
        • The Great Plague
        • Gynoids
        • Ant colony
        • Cyber TikTok
      • 2022 Vintage >
        • The night of 24th November 2021
        • The Game of Death
        • Communication methods of serial killers
        • Midjourney: Can machines be artists?
    • Information Visualisation >
      • Infoviz 2019
      • Infoviz 2020
      • Infoviz 2021
      • Infoviz 2022
  • Research
    • Publications
    • Conferences >
      • DOCAM 2019
      • Big Data 2016
      • BOLD 2014
      • EPICIC 2011
  • Data the Data
    • Data week
    • Hackathon
    • Atelier dat'accelere
  • Contact
  • Antland