ILLUSTRATION & HERITAGE: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures
 
On 22 and 23 November 2024, the 14th Annual International Illustration Research Symposium will explore the role illustration plays in cultural heritage. Hosted by the Illustration Programme at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, Illustration & Heritage: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures will present panels, papers, and posters by practitioners and researchers from the fields of illustration and heritage, who explore the active processes of heritage-making.

 

In what ways do contemporary illustrators participate in historical narratives and give voice to people and communities — both remembered and forgotten — through their work? How are historical relics, places, and events represented through illustrative processes? How do researchers and practitioners in heritage utilise the practices, research methods and processes of illustration? How does heritage shape the perspectives, positions, and identities of illustration practitioners and researchers? How is the process of heritage-making practised by illustrators around the world? How do illustrative processes — and the shared languages of categorising, curating, conserving, and communicating heritage  — bring illustration into the realms of archaeology, museology, curation, and other heritage practices? Do illustrators who engage with heritage-making as part of their practice communicate and reflect what Stuart Hall described as a ‘collective social memory’?  Who should be making the images that shape the future histories of culture and identity? When practising heritage-making with or through illustration, how do we make space for plurality, and how do we reflect on our subjectivity?  

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NOTES: 
Harrison, Rodney (2005) ‘Beyond “Natural” and “Cultural” Heritage: Toward an Ontological Politics of Heritage in the Age of Anthropocene’, Heritage & Society, 8(1). 24–42.
Hall, Stuart (1999) ‘Whose Heritage? Un-settling the Heritage, Re-imaging the Post-Nation’, Third Text, 13(49). 3–13.

 

Call for Papers and Posters
The call for papers and poster proposals is now open: please submit your interest by 23 March, 2024. extended to the 14th of April, 2024.

All submissions should be in .pdf format and emailed to: illustrationandheritage@arts.ac.uk

To submit a paper proposal, include:

• Working paper title 

• A 300-word written proposal detailing how the paper relates to the symposium themes 

• 3 images maximum

• 100-word biography and affiliation

• Reference to a symposium theme or prompt listed here (personal interpretations of these prompts are welcome).

 

To submit a poster proposal, include:

• Working poster title 

• 150-word written proposal detailing how the visual work relates to the symposium themes and key word poster prompts listed here

• 5 images maximum (from your own practice and/or research)

• 100-word biography and affiliation

• Reference to one key term theme or prompt listed here (personal interpretations of these prompts are welcome).

 

Notes: Posters will be exhibited alongside the symposium. Posters can be fully illustrational. Format specifications and practicalities for poster printing and display will be shared after the submission deadline has passed. 

 

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Symposium prompts and provocations for paper and poster proposals

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Heritage as Process

• Heritage is an ongoing, active process

• Illustration is a tool that can be used to bridge the gap between objects, people, and places and their stories

• Illustrative processes can disrupt the process of heritage-making, for example in the archive, collection, or museum

• People working in heritage often use illustrative processes in curation, collecting, captioning, and more

• Heritage is used to build future worlds

 

Participating in Heritage

• Illustrators participate in the historical narrative, rather than/as well as spectating or recording it

• Illustration plays a key role in museology, anthropology, archaeology, and curation

• Affected communities and individuals participate in the processes of illustration and heritage-making

• By exploring heritage through illustrative practice, we participate in events that are historically and geographically distant

 

A Found Voice and a Made Voice

• Illustration gives voice to historical individuals and communities, particularly those who are under-represented

• Through the processes of heritage-making and illustration, the historical voice can be ‘found’ and/or ‘reconstructed’

• Illustration as ventriloquism, medium/conduit, and/or spokesperson

 

Representing and Representation

• Illustration can represent prehistoric and historical landscapes or sites

• Illustration in the context of heritage can construct and represent a collective social memory and a ‘national story’ (Stuart Hall, 1999)

• Heritage-making represents a collective form of knowledge-making

• Illustration in the context of heritage draws attention to/privileges certain aspects of history, but not others

• List of key subjects, processes, and ideas

 

A non-exhaustive list of key terms that suggest subjects, processes, and
ideas that we welcome in paper and poster submissions:

Folk — archives, collections, and museums — curating and collecting —religion and spirituality — dance and song, and performance — heritage as a process — customs and traditions — food — dress and costume —heritage futures — collectives and communities — object narratives and embodiments — identity — story-telling and fiction — archaeology and museology — inheritance and legacy — memory — nostalgia — collectivity,  plurality, and chorality — place and situatedness — excavation — preservation — conservation — care — interpreting and exhibiting 

 

 

Questions: email Dr. Rachel Emily Taylor