Using Visual Thinking to Communicate the Essence of Graduate Students' Research

This two-hour workshop will address the isolation often experienced by graduate students, particularly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By fostering connection and shared understanding, the workshop aims to clarify the value of long-term academic pursuits and build community among peers.

Goals

• Provide a deeper understanding of visual thinking, graphic facilitation and graphic recording in research processes and dissemination
• Identify opportunities to use graphic facilitation in research programs
• Compare different disciplinary uses of graphic facilitation in publications research outputs
• Recognize and mitigate potential challenges in doing graphic facilitation

The endless potential of Visual thinking & Graphic Recordings

• Facilitating dialogue: Creating a space for open discussion, reflection, and connection.
• Enhancing understanding: Visually capturing key ideas and concepts to promote clarity and accessibility.
• Building community: Generating a shared visual document that can serve as a catalyst for further collaboration.

Invitation for participants before the workshop:

To maximize the workshop's impact, participants are encouraged to:

• Reflect on the core essence of their research.
• Identify three key takeaways from their research.
• Select up to three elements or symbols that represent these takeaways.

Recording of the session available for a month after the session.

Facilitator:

Adriana Contreras Correal (she, her, ella) is an Interdisciplinary Artist, bilingual Graphic Recorder and Illustrator (English and Spanish), and dedicated auntie, born in Bogotá, Colombia, living respect and gratitude on the traditional unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Artistic expression has always been a central part of Adriana's life but became an essential tool for navigating the world as a first-generation immigrant. Her migration journey profoundly informs her work and commitment to social justice at a local and global level. Her role as a Visual Practitioner is to witness, listen deeply, gather information, connect ideas and tell stories. Graphic Recording serves as a living memory of the time we share in dialogue; it is a form of harvesting and mapping of collective wisdom, stories, reflections, questions, and commitments to future action.

Adriana completed her BFA at SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts in 2006 and has worked and volunteered at numerous Arts and community-based organizations for over 20 years. She is the founder of MareVerso Creative.