Journal of illustration 12.1
This volume of the journal, edited by Nanette Hoogslag and Danielle Ridolfi, consisting of this first and a forthcoming second issue, is the result of papers presented and subsequently submitted for the 13th Annual Illustration Research Symposium held at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2023. This volume of the journal represents their research efforts all working towards the common aim of illuminating the various manifestations of the blind spot in the field of illustration.
The Journal of Illustration 12-1 ‘Blind spots’ is out!

‘Blind spots’ asks: if we are to work towards a comprehensive framework and enable a balanced and holistic understanding of what illustration is and does, what are the areas of knowledge that are essential to build on? What so far has been overlooked, avoided or concealed? Where are the blind spots?

This volume quietly celebrated the ten years since the first issue of the Journal of Illustration. It has seen illustration transition from an overlooked critical subject to a valid, thriving and growing area of research, which has been instrumental in establishing illustration practice as a field of study.

Interview with the editor,

Nanette Hoogslag

In the editorial piece for this issue, you mention that despite the popularity of practice and a growing research community, illustration practice itself is in many ways still a 'blind spot', an area notoriously overlooked. Do you think there has been any shift in this prejudice against illustration in the recent ten years? If there is any change, what do you think are the forces behind them?
It's been an exciting time for illustration research. I believe there is an
increasing curiosity in the phenomenon of illustration in general, and this
brings a growing understanding of its specific qualities as a form of
communication and place of culture.

This journal issue highlights the potentials of bringing diverse research
methods together. It gives space for established academic approaches which
support illustration historic subjects, looking at the place of illustration in
society. But also, since the start of the journal and its conferences, more and
more practicing illustrators or illustration-researchers have felt enabled to
investigate their own discipline, using forms of practice-based research to
understand from the inside, what illustration is and can do. This field of
research ‘through’ illustration has grown. This supports the desire of opening up a more expanded and arguably, a more representative field of research.

What is behind this? First of all, there are greater opportunities in
postgraduate positions within universities, particularly in the UK: the context
in which artistic practice-based research and research into illustration can
thrive and be taken seriously is becoming more established. The illustrators
who pioneered academic illustration research, are now the supervisors able to
support and encourage new research, and new forms of research output, and,
importantly, new generations of researchers.

Secondly, I think there is a greater appreciation for the different type of
knowledge that practice-based research can offer. But that comes with questions
around methods of inquiry and dissemination. This is for instance the question
asked by Stephanie Black and Luise Vormittag in this issue. What other
forms of scholarly expression can give space for different types of insight?
STEPHANIE BLACK, LUISE VORMITTAG
Colouring In: An attempt at polyvocal publishing
You also mention the dichotomies of the academic/practical work, the cerebral vs the haptic. Is it valid to assume that these come down to the limitations of thinking about illustration through language/semiotics, and if so, what are the recent (maybe more inspiring?) alternative approaches?
So far, we have very much understood, explored and taught illustration using
a deconstructivist/post-modern framework: the Illustration as Meaning
Materialised, where every brush stroke, colour or visual element is intentional
and is there to be read. But we might need to start to revise this singular view that can be very limiting and stifling and in and of itself problematic. Meaning, interpretation, connotation, – all of these are concepts under pressure in a communication world, thanks to the way we circulate images online, where decontextualization is becoming the norm. With AI scraping the internet’s billions of images, we are starting to see, that perhaps provenance, anchorage and contextualisation are no longer assured, and maybe no longer interesting.

Where do we go from here? Pete Williams' two-part article in this issue, offers
a theoretical grounding for this new way of image production and consumption, and a way forward with, through, and beyond AI.

Perhaps we are witnessing a next split in how we understand images, similarly to how we did with the introduction of photography – asking questions about visual truth and indexicality, now around context and authenticity. The traditional illustration is nestled in a fixed image-text relationship, safe in picturebooks and on printed packaging – and we can easily explain how the image and text build on each other. But now, this same image, let loose in the digital sphere, is more like a nomadic collection of assets, that can be recontextualised, rearranged and reinterpreted at will. This offers new freedoms, demands new ways of making connections and potentially new ways of conceptualising and creating. It certainly demands new ways of teaching.
What were your own discoveries about illustration and editing/publishing (or
something else?) in the process of working over the latest Blind Spots issue?
Blindspots as a theme was initiated as an open call to illustrators and illustration researchers to bring the areas that are underrepresented to our attention. When you grow from a small community like the illustration research network, what drives the interests and outcomes are the pre-occupations that are held within this community, particularly if you put practice-based research central. This brings depth in certain subject areas, but equally an inherent bias in focus and leaves cultures, approaches and technologies that are overlooked. Worse perhaps, subjects that are difficult or necessary for a thorough understanding might simply be avoided.

I had expected the range of topics to be more overtly discussing ‘our blind spots’. But of course, this is not how it works. Research and its subsequent dissemination are by nature the attempt to uncover something explicit yet unseen. So the issue presents articles that are specific in their topics, yet they link out to wider themes that are important to follow through. These would be the themes you will hopefully see develop in years to come.

So Blind Spots points to the ongoing essential need to discuss representation, both on who illustrates and who is illustrated, how we can or should approach culturally specific subjects, consider data visualisation methods to reveal alternative narratives or AI as both inherent and all changing. It asks questions about seeing and unseeing: visualising absence, what illustration means if you are visually impaired, or dealing with the experience of being unseen. It seeks to provoke a discussion about central qualities of illustration, presenting style, and our own artistic hubris that makes us blind to illustration’s inextricable link with an economic and practical raison d'être.

Hopefully this inspires and provokes people not only to further pursuit their own research ambitions, but see how their thoughts and ideas can be expressed in alternative ways and be part of a wider discussion.
Issue contents