During this workhsop, the DELTA team is working on a delta comic together with four artists from the regions where our fieldwork took place. With the comic we try on the one hand to communicate things we have learned in the deltas to the public who can't read long texts or already do that enough. On the other hand, we are trying out new forms of representation and communication of anthropological knowledge, through which we as researchers can also learn a lot of new things.

We have the great pleasure of creating the comic together with these four artists:

• Beatriz Belo (Brazil)
  My name is Beatriz Belo, I am an illustrator, designer and journalism academic, born in Macapá-AP, in northern Brazil. My relationship with comics starts from a young age. I started reading with Turma da Monica comics, a Brazilian classic by Maurício de Souza. After that, I was passionate about illustrated stories and that motivated me to start drawing too. Today I work with illustrations with a focus on the editorial area and I like to bring the experiences, colors and visuals of Amazonia into my productions.

 

• Karis Gruben (Canada)
  Karis Gruben is an Inuvialuk painter, carver and beader from Inuvik at the border of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region and the Gwich’in Settlement Region in what is today Canada’s Northwest Territories. She currently lives and works in Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. Gruben, a multidisciplinary artist without limits, enjoys the creative process and loves all art styles. Gruben has been inspired from a young age by her father, the late William Gruben, a renowned Tuktoyaktuk carver. Currently placing an emphasis on realism, she portrays a brilliant sense of strength in femininity.  

 

• Pamplumus (Senegal)
  Pamplumus is a Senegalese artist whose practice blurs the line between fine art, illustration, and visual design. Pamplumus' work is deeply rooted in the city of Dakar where he lives - its textures, noises, smells, rhythms. The internet is the sandbox in which he constantly creates, explores, deconstructs ideas. His work often features puns, wordplay, and humour. He is one of the first artists from Senegal in the blockchain.

 

• Thant Myat Htoo (Myanmar) 
  Thant Myat Htoo is a comic artist who has created well known comics stories in Myanmar such as Ma Phae Wah (The Yellow Ribbon) and Dassa Mehana and many other short comics stories. Born and have lived in Yangon since 1997. Start freelancing since 2015. His specialty includes Concept Art, Story Boarding, Editorial illustrations and Comics. Since childhood, he was overwhelmed by the children's comics books and his passion grew as an adult who became a comic artist himself now has ultimate plans to create astonishing comic books and stories to introduce the taste of 'Myanmar Comics Industry' to the rest of the world.

 

Part of this workshop will also be two events open to the public, to which interested people are cordially invited. Registration is required for both events. Both events will be held in English.

1. An exchange of experiences on collaboration in the creation of comics with scientists and artists. January26, 2022, 5.30 pm - 7 pm, hybrid format.

Collectively Creating Comics: Ethno-Graphic Storytelling and/as Teamwork

Comics are becoming a crucial genre for representing and communicating ethnographic insights and anthropological debates. A turn towards comics and cartoons also characterizes publications from other disciplines eager to communicate beyond their academic confines. Where reading increasingly happens in a context of visual elaboration and abbreviated texts, ethno-graphic novels and anthrographics can be ways of illustrating anthropological arguments for wider audiences. They can speak to the imagination, inviting readers to undergo a personal experience beyond the voice of an authoritative anthropologist. But this genre can also be a way of formulating new messages, representations and understandings altogether, if making comics is taken not as a rendering of given texts in visual format, but as a collectively creative process.

This panel draws on the experiences with comic-making from artists, anthropologist and others, paying particular attention to emerging forms of representation and messages that develop in the collective process. We will also discuss questions of visual narrative, the interplay of text and images, envisioned audiences, and dynamics of collective work between artists, academics and others. The background behind this workshop is a current comic project, in which the DELTA Project team is working together with artists from its four study regions to design comic stories about pertinent topics from the four river deltas.

More to this event, ingluding registration here. 

2. A panel discussion with comic artists from Cologne and the artists collaborating on Delta Comic. January 27, 2022, 6pm - 8pm, Cöln Comic Haus.

Ethno-graphic Stories of Rivers, Climate and Change: A Discussion with Comic Artists from Around the World

We are looking forward to this exchange between our guests and illustrators from the Rhineland. We are eager to hear the questions of Cologne artists and other interested parties about the Delta Comic project and the perspectives of the artists working on the Delta Comic. This talk is also an opportunity to meet our guests in person and learn more about their work beyond Delta Comics. Spaces for participants are limited, so please register.

More about this event, including registration here.