Let’s get physical: teaching illustration students to use heritage collections in the development of richer and more varied personal research methodologies

Edinburgh offers an unusual wealth of Museums and Heritage Collections. As a researcher working with these resources I am keen to weave it into student projects. Following a period where students were forced to access most research remotely, the value of engaging with physical materials has become even more apparent. Use of Heritage Collections has proved invaluable in expanding research methodologies, adding depth to analysis and richness to the sources that feed students’ creative practice.

This paper draws together reflections of Academics, Curators, Archivists and broader scholarship on the use of Collections in pedagogy. Particular collections are used at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) to foster distinct skills. New students are taught how to access collections at the National Library of Scotland (NLS). Later staff partner with curators to design projects using materials as a stimulus for ideas. These field trips enable students to see alternative ways to organise and communicate complex bodies of work.

Final year students use the ECA Collection to reflect on an ‘archive’. Establishing their own personal research methodology, students consider what research is, and where activities fit within a framework such as that modelled by Gannon and Fauchon; ‘research into, through and for illustration’ (2021:20).

In reflecting on how students actually learn to undertake research, this paper considers how effectively use of heritage collections facilitates students in questioning and determining value of a broader variety of materials in much more depth. The discipline of Illustration evolves to fit the times, and as the recent symposium ‘Illustration & Heritage: Sharing Histories to Draw Out Futures’ demonstrates, heritage is prominent in current practice. This paper offers a space to explore the relevance of teaching Illustration students how to use and interpret heritage materials within their own creative practice.

Keywords
Heritage collections, Illustration, Practice-based research, Pedagogy, Archives, Museums

Short Abstract
Use of Special Collections and Archives has proved invaluable in expanding the research methodologies of Undergraduate Illustration students, adding depth to analysis and richness to the sources that feed their creative practice.

Examining reflections of staff on the Programme, Curators, Archivists and broader scholarship on the use of Collections in Higher Education pedagogy, this paper maps out ways of nurturing rich and sophisticated research methodologies when working with Illustration students.

References
Rachel Gannon and Mireille Fauchon (2021) Illustration Research Methods. London, Bloomsbury Visual Arts. https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/secure/link?id=d3515b14-6027-ec11-ae72-a04a5e5d2f8d