INTRODUCTION

Adaline Bara is a freelance designer and writer from Kansas City, now based in Edinburgh with her husband and daughter. As an adoptee from China, she co-founded the Whatever Next? project to explore and amplify adoption-related experiences. Her work has been featured in 404 Ink Inklings and she has appeared on BBC Radio Scotland, STV, and KSHB 41. 

INTERVIEW

How did you get into your creative practice? What initially inspired you?

Before co-authoring Whatever Next? On Adult Adoptive Identities, my writing experience was limited to journaling and blogging. Since then, I’ve enjoyed using it as my main creative practice. This especially helped me through my pregnancy last year and processing new motherhood. In stolen moments of time between nappy changes, breastfeeding, and getting my hair yanked out by little fists, I write essays to better connect with myself and fiction to indulge my imagination.

I first got into art through fashion design and illustration. I was inspired by faces, human forms, patterns and bold colors. When I went back to school for Population Health, I realised I could use those skills in a new way. I’m now inspired by the connection between healthcare and design; illustrating statistics, designing user-friendly reports, crafting compelling visuals for social media outreach.

What themes do you tend to interrogate in your creative practice?

In writing: Identity, human connection, multiculturalism 

In design: portrait illustration, health inequalities, social justice, education

What is your favourite project you’ve ever worked on and why?

My favorite written piece that I’ve done recently is titled Symptoms of Connection. It’s a personal essay that explores my experience of motherhood as an adoptee. 

One of my favorite design projects I’ve worked on is an interactive e-learning tool, Understanding Equalities Through A Social Justice Lens, that I created for the Scottish Qualifications Authority. I loved getting to collaborate with their Equalities Team to produce anti-racist education.

My other favorite design project was a research analysis for the British Heart Foundation because I got to experiment using ArcGIS StoryMaps. I loved getting to design data visualisations and interactive maps. 

What advice would you have for creatives of colour looking to get into design and writing?

Connect with community groups and share your work.

For East and South East Asians, there is an amazing new group called ESEA Creatives.  

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a short story collection.