As the traditional position of the illustrator ‘for hire’ diminishes and Illustration practices become ever more chimera-like, the current high demand for illustration courses raises important questions around how we educate a future generation of illustrators and make known their value to employers, collaborators and commissioners, outside of the ‘bubble’ of academic study. The case for criticality in the subject is urgent.

As educators our role is to be at the forefront of championing the development and understanding of our disciplines. What are the tools that educators and students of illustration need to understand the subject with both criticality and professionalism? What are the key questions those teaching the subject need to ask to facilitate illustrators to better understand their cultural agency and have the means to work ethically and effectively? How can we best consecrate links between innovative or exploratory educational practices and professional applications?

The symposia will incorporate presentations from academics, professional practitioners and recent graduates. The conference will also include a virtual poster forum and an exhibition showcase.

Panels

• Illustration as performance, happening and event
• Networks, co-production and collaborative practices
• Responsibility, ethics and power 
• New readings of illustration – alternative and unfamiliar narratives 
• Illustration histories, situating ourselves within the art historical canon
• Tools, technologies and craft – the illustrator’s skillset
• Illustration impacts, the reach beyond academia
• Illustration publics and participatory practices
• Care & compassion; tolerance, empathy and understanding through illustration
• Make, do and share; workshoping, DIY culture and radical illustration pedagogies
• Illustrative interpretations and the creation of the archive
• Research for Illustration; processes, strategy and interpretative practices
• Making public: platforms and projects
• ‘Lively’ illustration, feeling and sense in contemporary practice
• Illustration & the academy: research knowledge and new frontiers
• Education, emancipation and actualisation
• Education and Illustration in the C20th Classroom