For Regional Activists & Artists – Empathy For Youth Academy

“ILLUST-PRETIF” A therapeutic art exercise through interpretative illustrations

Civic Innovation Fair 2023 (CIF2023) in Bangkok celebrated three years of work during the pandemic, bringing together CSO partners and I4C-EA leadership. The event featured skill shares, Pecha Kucha presentations, a digital rights panel, and showcases of new projects and talents

Innovation for Change – East Asia on Civic Innovation Fair 2023

Context: First big gathering after COVID lockdown subsided
Bring focus on participants interacting and being aware of exhibition materials
2-3 days
Approx 40-50 pax of Human Rights Defenders and Artists from East-Asia region
Activities accessible for diverse backgrounds

Deliver an interactive, follow-along activity with instructions
Hold space for participants witnessing and acknowledging collectively their current emotional location, being present for each other for their hurt and strength
Potentially trusting each other enough to express personal needs

"Nourished, Brave, Connected"

"Solidarity Is Healing"

Illust-Pretif: Prompt for Day 1

Illust-Pretif: Prompt for Day 2

Illust-Pretif: Prompt for Day 3

SYNOPSIS

As a therapeutic art project, ILLUST-PRETIF initiates exploring the immediate and remote feelings, the mind and the heart space. A series of illustrations are produced daily through prompts by each individual. On the final day, other participants then interact with each others’ abstraction in “the softest” way possible. Ideally, participants are compelled to exchange their work with one another as a parting gift.

OBJECTIVES

Responding and engaging with source material in an abstract manner is the first step in encouraging and locating sensations, thoughts, and feelings, in the CIF2023 landscape, in a recorded way.
The activity acts as a space holder of first contact among participants who gravitate and aspire to collaborate with one another.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Tracing paper. Size available: A4, A3.
Stationery: pen, pencil, coloured pencil, coloured marker pen.

Azzad in his element conducting a session

A participant's illustration work attached to part of an exhibition. Location intended and decided by them as a way to interact with contents and issues presented in the space

More illustrations from participants

It's been a while since I drew. This is the result of Azzad Mahdzir-Sariza asking us to identify our feeling(s), after we did a mapping of what's hot in the region, and then to draw how that feeling looks like. I was thinking about the folks who are missing, those we couldn't bring, those who couldn't come, those no longer with us.

Some illustrations were hung for others to observe

Participants view each other's work and took a moment to share in the "witnessing" portion of the session

Thai artist, namsai, reflected on the methodology of using tracing paper in working with illustration practice as part of documenting the event visually

namsai's layering using tracing paper

namsai's work

CIF 2023 Day 0 with "almost" everyone

CIF2023 reflected on the changing state of civil society in the region as well as I4C’s programmatic work around Disinformation, COVID, China’s Overseas Influence, and Sustainable Activism—much of which would not be possible without the participants involved.

At the heart of the event was the Innovation Showcase, an interactive exhibition of I4C’s 2020-2022 programming, which celebrated civil society innovations and the contemplation on how to move forward together.

View Chiang Mai-based artist namsai, in her work as visual storyteller of the entire event.

Story of Light and Darkness: A visual storyteller’s reflection about Civic Innovation Fair 2023

“ILLUST-PRETIF” A therapeutic art exercise through interpretative illustrations

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