Bodies in spaces: Illustration at the university

Abstract

This article is the beginning of more detailed research and writing on the discipline of ‘illustration’ as it is bounded by and created for higher education. The broad concept of bodies in spaces is used as an entry point for considering both pedagogy and illustration as a whole. The way we are as bodies and the way bodies are conceptualized are two very important concerns for both illustration and for teaching. This is a first attempt by the author to map their experiences of illustration as it is taught and discussed in higher education and is based on the author’s experiences teaching in a wide range of institutions in the United Kingdom and at Parsons School of Design in the United States. These experiences are used to consider the work that can be done to dismantle and decolonize ‘illustration’ and to begin to think about an alternative discipline that evades the forms of knowing currently facilitated within the university.