Colouring In: An attempt at polyvocal publishing

Many writers and academics have commented on the relative paucity of theoretically grounded writing in illustration over the past decades (Triggs 2000, Poynor 2010, Bogart 2018). Recently a number of new platforms and initiatives have galvanised more scholarly work and new discursive spaces are being created to reflect on the discipline. In an editorial for this journal illustration historian Jaleen Grove describes these exciting developments as the ‘Theoretical Turn’ of illustration (2018:181). Barriers to contribute to these discussions however are persistent and lead to academic blindspots. As a result there is a risk that emergent discursive spaces remain exclusionary and insular.

Colouring In is the name of a collaborative research and publishing project by Stephanie Black and Luise Vormittag that aims to include a broader range of voices in this process of theorising our discipline. The project, initiated in 2020, aims to generate new knowledge about the potential of illustration practice to make meaningful contributions to issues of critical importance to global debates. Rather than presenting our findings to date as a theoretical argument, this article reports and reflects on the different methods we have used in pursuing this inquiry, methods that we hope are enabling a greater range of perspectives to come to the fore.

Based on the principles of dialogic exchange, an attitude of receptive generosity, and the drive to utilise these in the pursuit of a shared, persistent, iterative quest for clarification, Colouring In has enabled contributions from illustrators and people with other kinds of expertise at different stages of their career. This article captures and scrutinises how we have assembled these polyvocal publications. This is to reflect on how illustration research is done, not just what people are arguing, and whether there are ways to improve it so that principles and methods align.