In illustration, we are used to the idea that as successful practitioners, failure to communicate effectively is something to be avoided. As professional illustrators, many of us feel that we know what success looks like, either in our careers or in terms of the creation of ‘good’ or excellent images. We do not often talk about unsuccessful illustrations or their attributes. This tendency towards success over failure may be preventing us from seeing the radical potential of working against the grain, and may be stopping us from recognising what other forms of practice could look like.

In illustration education, it is common that students deemed successful are celebrated and made visible while unsuccessful peers are forgotten. In his seminal 2011 book The Queer Art of Failure, Jack Halberstam outlines the ways in which our conceptions of success might be failing us and our students. True failure can be a painful subject – but to avoid it may also reinforce the notions of success which cause that discomfort. By embracing failure and redefining success, could we discover new and alternative forms of knowledge production?

Beyond this, we might consider the potential of ‘failing’ as an active form of resistance to normative modes of making, capitalist frameworks, and conventions that uplift certain voices or stories while silencing others. What might it mean to engage with the idea of failure as a creative force that challenges these conventions? We might ask this question against the backdrop of the climate crisis and other contextual conditions, such as the changing landscape of arts education, or the emergence of AI technologies within and beyond the creative industries. What happens when we look failure in the eye?

In this symposium, we hope to consider the topic of failure from many angles, to understand how it can help us reimagine trajectories of illustration research, education and practice.