Thesis Plan

I have decided on my final topic and have written a research plan. 

You may notice that I’ve written only in Finnish. My thesis will be in English so I guess it’s appropriate  to write the blog also in English.

Research Plan

I am interested in microstock illustations as the area of study. Microstock photo agency is stock photography or illustration provider, which sources images from individuals, for example from freelancers and amateurs.

There is plenty of research about microstock photo agencies in the perspective of marketing but not in the perspective of graphic design and content analysis. In my opinion further research about microstock illustrations are needed.

While using microstock photo agencies in my work as graphic designer in the University of Cape Coast I had an impression that illustrations of African characters where somewhat limited in numbers and in range of topics. I would want to dig deeper into the subject to find out how Africannes is portrayed in microstock illustrations.

I will do a literature review on representations of African characters and some basic theories of stereotyping and visual otherness / orientalism. One such literature is Jan Nedeveen Pietersen’s White on Black, Images of Africa And Blacks in Western Popular Culture (1992, Yale University Press, New Haven and London).

I will gather data from five well-established international microstock photo agencies, namely Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, Istock and Adobe Stock. I limit the research to only English language microstock sites to ease the analysis.

I will use search words “African, not African-American” or simply “African” if I can otherwise filter out images portraying African-Americans. I will concentrate on search results with a human character. I will leave out objects, patterns, abstraction, nature and animals and other non-human motives. I will also rule out photographs and videoand concentrate on non-photographic illustrations. I will pick first ten applicable search results. The data will consist of 50 images in all.

I’m going to use semiotic analysis and close reading, to analyse the samples. I am going to concentrate on the roles the characters are assigned to and the main themes that arise from the data. I will compare my findings to the literature.

Based on the conclusion of the study I will draw 10 illustrations that offer alternative representations of African characters in order to contribute in the diversity of imagery regarding the African population available in microstock collections. 

Schedule

Fall 2016

• Course work
• Methodology and terminology
• Literature review

Spring 2017

• Course work
• Literature review
• Gathering data
• Data analysis

Fall 2017

• Illustrating
• Summary and Conclusion
• First version of write up
• Final version of write up

 

Why Not Comics?

 

Last night I was thinking about the thesis. Why wouldn’t I make the research about comics. I could write about the representation of African characters in Finnish (or European) graphic novels. As my practical production I could make a graphic novel with an African character from a new perspective or at least with wider array of african characters.

I wonder if I could pull this of. This might step into the challenging area of literature. And it might be difficult to explain why Im doing media research type of subject within design program. Never the less it’s an interesting topic.

Afripedia

Afripedia, Autlook Filmsales GmbH Ruotsi

http://areena.yle.fi/1-3171364

RIKAS AFRIKKA 18.1. in Yle Teema

http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2015/12/30/teemakokonaisuus-rikas-afrikka-181-alkaen-yle-teemalla?ref=ohj-articles

History of African Americans in YLE

 

Historia: Afroamerikkalaiset

Jakso 1: Musta Atlantti

The African Americans

PBS Distribution,USA

http://areena.yle.fi/1-2658862

Jakso 2: Orjuuden aika

The African Americans

PBS Distribution,USA

http://areena.yle.fi/1-2658865

Kino: The Butler

SCANBOX ENTERTAINMENT DENMARK A/S USA

 

Me ja Muut

 

I will have to get this book from the library. It’s translated as: We and Others: culture, identity, otherness.

Im particularly interested in an article  about racism in Western aesthetics. (Rantonen, 1994).

Me ja muut –kulttuuri, identiteetti, toiseus. By Marjo Kylmänen. Tampere.

White on Black

 

Next in my reading list is White on Black, Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture by Jan Nederveen Pieterse (Yale University Press, 1992), as soon as I finish reading my course books. Though the book is so interesting that I might read it first…

The Book seems to be a history of the development of stereotypic and racist imagery of black people portrayed by westerners. This book fits well to my project and my self in general.

I my self am in the position of white person portraying blacks. How could I avoid stereotyping, patronizing and abusing attitude? I would not want to portray otherness, but do I really have any other options? I will always be the outsider, the white, no matter how long I’ve lived in another country, adobted a new culture and even live in a multicultural relationship.

I cannot get rid of my background, but can I at least learn to acknowledge it? Wouldn’t it be far more important to try to underline that this is my impression, my expression of things, and so different from the identity of the people I have portrayed?

Is there any logic in trying to portray someone other? Should I not leave that task to themselves? Should I merely concentrate on illustrating the white Northern European reality and forget about the others? Am I just trying to be some sort of messiah? This should be none of my concern. Or do I as an illustrator have the obligation to reach out to the unknown, letting the process develop me as a person?

I hope I will evolve trough this book and the thesis project toward awareness of my prejudices, different roles that people groups are assigned to and hidden post clonial power structures in our world. After finishing this project I doubt I will be able ever again just place my pencil on a paper light heartedly without considering the consequences and moral responsibilities.

Great Idea 2: The wonderful World of Microstocks

 

This would be an easier option. It also interests me quite a bit though it’s not all that noble life changing topic. Oh well, at least I won’t have to deal with a white messiah complex.

I’d like to study how microstock illustrations portray african characters. (Again Afrcan theme. Im stuck in it. Maybe some reverse cultural shock going on.) As a graphic designer in a West African university, I have had to go trough microstock collections in search for images with an african theme. I have noted that the role African characters are given is narrow and stereotypical. This is my hypothesis anyway. In my thesis I would like to go deeper and find out if this is true and what are the typical roles african characters are given in microstock illustrations.

As a graphic designer in an African university it would be awesome if there were more variety in illustrations when it comes to african characters. I would benefit from this study a lot my self. As my thesis project I would want to make illustrations about Africa and African characters which would stand out from the typical microstok illustrations in regards to the topics and the roles assigned to the characters. I would want to broaden the field. My assumption is that there is a need for it. If my study reveals that there actually is no need for this then I may need to figure out the practical project from another angle. But Im pretty sure there is always space for new kinds of illustrations.

By the way with African I mean sub Saharan African. (Minus white africans. Sorry. Can I do that?) The term is slightly problematic when it comes to search words. Often when you use the word African as a search word you end up getting results for African Americans and other African related groups. Many times you can use these two in a mix but sometimes cultural differences and differences in physical appearance become an issue. Should I use a term like indigenous African, I would certainly rule out the African American material but it would also lead the material into certain direction. Have to think about a solution for this.

For quite some time I have collected interesting images with this theme to ehm… Pinterest. I have gathered fine art and vector illustrations. I would probably use some of these as my inspiration to the final product. Though in the vector collection there are a lot of bad examples too and most of them seems to be examples of African American rather than African characters. These are not very scientifically collected samples. I might want to make a new collection specifically for this project.

Great Vision 1: Empowering Comics

 

My initial idea was to write something to do with my employer’s websites. But actually I was not very interested in it and it had a lot of challenges to do with communication and location. If you have ever dealt with an African organization you know that things work best if you can meet face to face. Besides Im pretty sure Savonia wouldn’t fund my air ticket so I’ll drop this idea for now.

Well then, only heaven is the limit. What could be of interest to me? I could use the opportunity to do something really DUM. Something that profits me nothing.

For a long time I tossed the idea of comics as my subject. Somehow the fact that I’m (propably) not going to do a career as a comic artist was bothering me. For the last five years I could not even get a hold of a recently published comic book. You may note that I’ve been living in a developing country for a while. Though maybe precisely for this reason I should go for this topic. It could further the field of comic art in West Africa.

Still in this topic too I run into the problem of location. I should return to Africa, or better still, be an african.

I wonder if I could get some sort of funding for arranging empowering comic making course in a developing country. At least there is an NGO in Finland called World Comics and they are about “promoting comics as a development communication medium”. They could at least give me some advise.

http://www.worldcomics.fi/

http://comics-with-attitude.blogspot.fi/

Facing all this I feel exhausted. I would have to arrange all sorts of stuff. I would have to get maybe some training from the World Comics guys and maybe some human rights training, funding, travel, would have to actually arrange and advertise the course in the developing country and get people to join. And I’ve even forgotten that I may not actually be teacher type. I have worked as a teacher for three months in a West African primary/junior high school with poor success.  At least I would know all the pitfalls, that’s for sure.

Oh man, I’m really interested in this subject. It would be awesome to help kids in developing countries to learn and express their human rights trough comics.

If funding would not be the problem I would still need to face the issue of possibly leaving my one year old child behind for a month or more. I wonder if I should save this project for later since I seem to have issues with making so many sacrifices.

Well of course I could execute this project in Finland lets say among immigrants.  Somehow that just does not get me so passionate. But maybe i just have to give the idea some time. Maybe it will start to taste better after a while.

Background

 

About six years ago I was struggling with my bachelor thesis. I had chosen a topic that was beyond my skills and  my interests. I also had no idea how to do research and how to keep up a writing process. The white page in my screen would stare at me hours on end. Finally I managed to put something mediocre down and handed it over.The whole process left me feeling a failure.

I then moved to West Africa and began a career as a graphic designer in a university. I was quite satisfied with my job but after a while began to dream of a position where I could have more influence and ehm… salary. I began to look for an opportunity to further my studies.

I sent applications to Erasmus program (media), Aalto-university (graphic design), University of Lapland (graphic design), University of Turku (media research), Lahti University of Applied Sciences (design and media), Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (media) and Savonia University of Applied Sciences (design making). Only Savonia accepted me. Is this to say that Savonia was the only University that understands my type of genius? 😉

With this background in mind I  cordially begin my thesis writing project. I hope this time I can chooce a topic that better reflects my skills and interests. I also hope to get a better grasp on the academic world and some insights to the writing process. This blog acts as my project diary / learning diary. I hope it will also gain some readers. And do feel free to comment. That would be a very big motivation to me. Hopefully this blog will also be of use to someone in a similar situation.