13 - Creating artworks from data

Summary

Introduction

New ways of thinking can occur by accident while planning for something more conventional. This chapter describes how I used drawings as data in my project working with people from different heritages, who were learning English because they were new to the UK or English was not their first language, in a local social history museum. To support this, I will provide some alternative uses to drawing in research, how it can benefit the researcher and participants, touching on how drawing can be a tool for the writer, and finally show how it can be used to mitigate research bias and Westernised thinking. Analysing drawings, whether they are self- created or another’s, is not confined to the analytical step of the research process. This chapter will show how we analyse images, in particular drawings, during the data collection, processing, and analysis stages of research.

My project introduced me to different ways of thinking and showed how experiences have a multitude of influencing factors that are not easily translated from one language, or person, to another. I realised that by bypassing linguistic structures in creating images of experiences, I was also bypassing my Westernised semiotic interpretation of the moment. In presenting data this way, it enables each viewer to make a considered analysis of the image and removes the hurdle of attempting to verbalise an intangible experience, potentially with a different semiotic lexicon. This process also allows for interpretation of experiences where people involved in the research have declined, or are unable, to have images of themselves included, either for religious or personal reasons. As I will describe in more detail, some of the people I worked with were asylum seekers, refugees, or held religious beliefs that did not permit them to have their photograph taken.

I would stress that using drawing does not require any training or talent. The images of experiences do not have to be realistic or show faces to convey an emotion or moment. This chapter will explore using drawing as a thinking process and how it can decolonise one's analysis.