Graphic narratives in space

Graphic stories in the form of comics, cartoons, and graphic novels have long since made their way as pieces into museums—as art forms and integral parts of popular culture. What is relatively new, however, is that illustration itself has been found to be an alternative method of organising and displaying the content of exhibitions. The combination of text and image makes it possible to reduce complexity while at the same time retaining it. They signify accessibility and are capable of visually putting things in a nutshell. At the same time, they introduce a form of narration into the space that takes a specific angle, is intentionally not neutral, and enhances the usually object-centred story line of exhibitions. The workshop raises the question of graphic stories’ potential to narrate, educate, and design in space, and what challenges this poses to curators, designers, and educators? How do multimodal media that combine text and image function differently in space than on paper? How do they interact with other text elements and items in the exhibition space? How can graphic stories create polyphony, and how are they situated between fact and fiction? Working together, we would like to discuss and experimentally investigate which topics are suitable for an illustrative approach to exhibitions.