Miriam Elgon
Lecturer BA Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London
Miriam Elgon
Critical Illustration Practice: a pedagogical model for developing ethics and social impact
Abstract
As educators how do we support students to become ethically and critically sensitive illustration practitioners and confident agents of change in their chosen fields?
We believe that every illustration practitioner should strive to create positive social impact. This is through an approach to practice that develops and engages critical tools in order to work with and within cultures, environments, places, materials, social and political structures.
We have developed a pedagogical model that aims to engage students with critical thinking and looking as a method to drive making. For this symposium we will present a model for critical illustration practice through sharing two projects, Unpacking the Issue and Biography, that ran in the academic year 2019/20 with Year 1 BA Illustration students.
Bio
Miriam and Sinead are makers and educators.
Miriam’s work encompasses drawing, painting, printmaking, weaving and surface design. Within these areas, she is interested in projecting herself into different times and places, imagining herself as other people through inhabiting existing narratives and creating her own.
Sinead is currently working with ceramic processes, film and photography to illustrate stories of raw materials and their journey through time, earth and industrial strata. They have been talking about ideas around illustration and education since working together as commissioning editors on Studio Operative’s publication Limner Journal. Now they are both teaching on the Illustration Programme at Camberwell.