The Graphic Novel as post qualitative inquiry: using arts based research
‘Linda Knight – created a graphic novel as a way of experimenting with arts based post qualitative inquiry to explore how visual texts might operate as data and how research can be generative – assumptions and fixed ideas about the world can be dismantled and rethought.'( MMU blurb)
Notes from the session
Researching / methodological sense / context . Not new . Not art making as such , art rich, not fixed within a particular frame work . Delurze Affect. Imagining/ image , not feelings – sensations intuition , a particular moment, passage from one affect , thought, temperature, movement, tension, muscles, ideas, materials , shift/ change, series of assemblagesInstruct – sensation , create, generate,
Linda has produced a graphic novel about a child refugee. Child hood subjectivities – looked at the topic/ theme through a series of pages that explore different ways of dividing up a page, materials,not a finished published piece more like a visual journal – there are very few words.
There are exploratory drawings, children’s drawings.collected images and instructional text about how to do various techniques. Examples of other graphic novels
The book is an exploration of her ideas and thoughts. No imperial study , she is generating research, engaging in the research through her body. What informs research?
Other people make value judgements about what is research. Her activity is other than qualitative or quantitative- a/rt/ographical research
We were asked to respond to a page from her book that appealed to us. And draw – it could be in graphic novel format or experimentation – use a pencil/ pen as you don’t usually use it.
I was attracted to a page about the refugees friend who carried around a carved wooden elephant in his pocket- it reminded me of Margaret Somerville story of a how she and children had carried stones around in their pockets. The stoned had weighed her down and caused pain in her shoulder as if she was trapped under a mountain shelf
On the page she had played with the image of the elephant in a pocket from inside the pocket. I loved the idea of the dark and your eyes getting used to a shape that gradually became an elephant as a hand came in and withdrew it into the light.
The pencil marks were textured shading – no outlines and beautiful- I was drawn to using the technique with my doodling pen – which is usually used in a neat and tidy way
Linda’s page 
My response – playing with the idea of the stone, then the idea of weight on the shoulder and then where did the stone come from and how did it get small and round with no hard edges – then as it my wont – I started adding text …
tesswyatt's Blog 