What Can Pink Be?
Participatory Classroom Design on Gender and Color Bias
What Can Pink Be? is a classroom-based design intervention that explores how color, especially pink, shapes gender perception and creative freedom.
Conducted at Shizong No. 2 High School in Yunnan, China, the workshop invited students to create artworks using only pink pens and stickers.
By limiting the palette to a color often stereotyped as “feminine,” the project disrupted automatic associations between color, identity, and expression.
There were no drawing instructions—just one rule: use only pink. The constraint created space for reflection, humor, and experimentation.
The resulting works revealed how young people negotiate visual language, cultural expectations, and self-image, even within tight boundaries.
By asking a simple question—What can pink be?—this project demonstrates how design can enter classrooms as a tool for social inquiry, giving form to conversations too often left unspoken.
Participatory Design
Visual Identity & Bias
Design and Education
Presented at Shizong No. 2 High School,
Yunnan, China August 2023