Visual Arts
Narrative, Language, and Comics-as-Literature
Comics are persistently labelled a kind of literature but so-called literary treatments of the form are often questionable focusing on story content and themes. The fact that comics tell diverse interesting stories makes them no more ‘literary’ than film opera or indeed soap opera. It seems perverse for scholars bent on demonstrating the efficacy of visual storytelling to claim that it is storytelling which makes comics literary thus aligning narrative in general with the verbal medium. This chapter sets forth a more scrupulous framework for approaching comics as literature. Through a close analysis of various examples this chapter challenges the habitual sidelining of text within comics. It demonstrates: first how comics can be heavily dependent on text; second how that text can be properly – that is formally – literary; and third how the medium can deploy the linguistic element of its content in ways that create literary textual effects that are in fact unique to the comics medium. In carefully distinguishing between elements such as theme and plotting which are common to all narrative media and these truly literary devices this chapter ultimately concludes that in order for the comics medium to be given its due as a potentially literary form proper attention needs to be paid to the way it incorporates literary language. In service of theoretical precision critics must not confuse narrative properties with literary ones but must rigorously insist on the correct frame of reference in order to promote serious academic study of this diverse and complex narrative form.
Multimodal Duck-Rabbitry: Multistable Perception and the Narrative Potential of Fold-Ins
Multistable perception describes the trick of visual perception where one image is perceived to transition into another. This process is both cognitive and perceptual which means the image itself does not change it is the viewer's perception that changes via our ‘subjective filtering mind’ (Horstkotte and Pedri 2011: 332). Karin Kukkonen calls this kind of visual paradox ‘duck-rabbitry’ after the 1892 illustration of a duck that can also be perceived as a rabbit (Kukkonen 2017: 137). This chapter examines multistable perception in the context of multimodal theory by exploring the meaning-making potential of narrative fold-ins – that is comics and ergodic analogue visual narratives that exploit the folding potential of the page for narrative ends. The chapter is structured in three parts: first we define multistable perception in relation to multimodality more broadly and then in relation to specific forms of multistable images; second we discuss how multistable perception is made more complex when considering the influence of metaphor materiality and temporal affordances; third we explore the narrative potential of multistable perception across a range of exemplar comics specifically in relation to these multimodal affordances in works by Gaëlle Lalonde Andy Poyiadgi Joe Sacco Carmine Iannaccone and James Jean. These analyses provide insight into comics which use the multimodal structure of the book-as-object to encourage play contribute to narrative disrupt time and undermine the assumptions of linear storytelling. Despite shifting paradigms in comics studies the tensions between the page and the panel are often resolved in favour of sequential narrative. By introducing multistable elements that emerge via the manipulation of the book itself narrative fold-ins promote non-linear reading creative engagement and interactivity.
The Myth of Eco: Cultural Populism and Comics Studies
For decades Umberto Eco's essay ‘The myth of Superman’ has been cited as the authoritative study of superhero comics. More recently however Eco's work has been a site of argument as cultural and media studies scholars such as Angela Ndalianis and Henry Jenkins contend that the narrative logic of contemporary superhero comics has become more complex than Eco imagines. These scholars replace Eco's ‘oneiric climate’ of suspended time with models of multiple and intertextual narratives that extend across diverse media. While Eco's observations are more historically contingent than he acknowledges his analysis remains more applicable than his critics allow. Some scholars have misread Eco's arguments and overstated the radicalism of contemporary superhero narratives. This chapter argues that it is time to re-evaluate Eco's work and move beyond the populist predominantly celebratory tone of his critics.
Reimagining the Art Classroom
This book is for artists teachers and those who prepare teachers. In the field of art and design education there are many theoretical strands that contribute to the practices of teaching and learning in the visual arts. The problem for artist teachers and those who prepare teaching artists is how to frame the diverse methodologies of art and art education in a way that affords divergent practices as well as deep understanding of issues and trends in the field. Teachers need a field guide that provides a contextual background of theory in order to make their own teaching practice relevant to contemporary art practices and important ideas within the field of education. The book in its content and presentation of content is pedagogical; it provides a catalyst and prompt for meaningful and personal artistic inquiry and exploration.
The book describes connections between teaching and artistic practices including the pedagogical turn in contemporary art. As a book for artists and designers it is graphically compelling and visually inspiring. It is designed to be engaging for the practitioner and theoretically robust. A problem with many current texts is that they are written by academics who are often a step removed from the issues of classroom instruction and tend use the language of the scholar which is appropriate for a scholarly journal but can be difficult for other audiences. This book will bridge this divide through its use of design narrative and descriptions of innovative artistic practices. Rather than being a book about “best practice” it is a book about “diverse practices” within art making and teaching.
This field guide to artistic approaches including methods for teaching art frames its arguments around critical questions that artists and art teachers must address such as: What is the role of art and design in secondary education? What will I teach? How do we go about teaching art? How do I know if my teaching is working? What is the role of traditional mediums and methods within contemporary art practices? How can art teachers contribute to the reinvention of schools? How might fluency within a medium be connected to important issues within culture including the culture of adolescents? This book includes examples of approaches that might provoke or inspire artist and pedagogical inquiry. These are approaches that actively engage students in work that disrupts taken for granted conventions about schooling and its purposes. It considers how art and design might transform the school experience for adolescents.
Marina Abramović, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 23 September 2023–1 January 2024
Review of: Marina Abramović Royal Academy of Arts London 23 September 2023–1 January 2024
Walking in Art Education
This edited collection highlights ways that arts-educators have taken up important questions around learning with the land through walking practices across spatial temporal and cultural differences. These walking practices serve as ecopedagogical moments that attune us to human-land and more-than-human relationships while also moving past Western-centric understandings of land and place. Yet it is also more than this as the book situates this work in a/r/tographic practices taking up walking as one method for engagement.
Authors explore walking and a/r/tography in their local contexts. As a result the book finds that kinship and relationality are significant themes that permeate across a/r/tographic practices focused on ecopedagogy and learning with the land.
Unique to this collection is the weaving of groundings that both guide each chapter and emphasize the philosophical commitment of the book. Each grounding is written by scholars or artists with Indigenous backgrounds to Turtle Island (North America) or are scholars who are Indigenous to other countries and places who are now working in Canadian university settings. Many are Elders cultural stewards knowledge keepers and stewards of the land who find themselves immersed in practices that are artful ecological and in many instances involve the practice of walking. Each grounding offers an important lesson or prompt for readers to consider as they engage with the chapters as well as offering a conceptual re-centring and grounding to the land and the traditional knowledges from the territories on which this collection is being produced and edited.
Anishnaabe kwe scholar and artist Anna-Leah King reflects on the teachings of Alfred Manitopeyes a Saulteaux Elder from Muskcowekwun Pimosatamowin who shares that good walking and good talking is more than just a metaphor.
Ojibwa scholar and artist Natalie Owl troubles the dictionary definition of anecdotal in relation to walking in the world as an Indigenous woman.
Mukwa Musayett Shelly Johnson reflects on her relationship to the natural elements revealing how the winds have helped her learn emotional intimacy- from feelings of grief frustration anger respect power love and gratitude.
Metis scholar and artist Shannon Leddy invites the reader to a time-travelling walk tracing the colonial legacies of the land where she now lives in Vancouver Musqueam Territory going back to ancient Greece and engaging with Greek mythology and bringing us to creation itself as we gestate in our mother’s womb.
Cathy Rocke invites readers to her favourite walking path where she focuses her attention to the reciprocal relationships found in nature and considers how they can help us better understand healthy human relationships.
Gloria Ramirez reflects on her homeland in the Andean Mountains and how her body is intimately tied to the places she has walked.
In a poetic grounding story Shauneen Pete reflects on the traditional teachings shared by her grandfather from Little Pine First Nation about living and learning with the land.
Sheila Blackstock member of the Gitxsan First Nation invites readers to join her on a walk along the lakeshore in early springtime as she reflects on her walking practices that have taught her how to learn from nature. She describes her movements and senses as “a heart catalogue of understanding how to be in nature”.
In this grounding lesson from Peter Cole and Pat O’Riley the characters of Coyote and Raven invite readers to the Kichwa-Lamista of the High Amazon and the Quechua Andeans in the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru. Through story they talk about returning to the land in an era of climate change and learning about traditional lifeways of Indigenous relations that emphasize preserving maintain repairing caring and sharing.
In her grounding poem Yasmin Dean attunes to and shows gratitude to the Earth as she thoughtfully considers how to open and walk through the gate that leads to the sacred.