Paper short abstract:

In a life history interview with Julie the knitter, in order to encompass the a series of past events without being too emotionally vulnerability - an experimental ethnographic method: animated illustration was adapted as a mean to strike a balance between explicitly and immersive communication.

Paper long abstract:

This life history interview was conducted Canterbury, Kent - with Julie the knitter in a café.

In human society, certain visual symbols could trigger a positive feeling of being enchanted, that provoke people’s desire to possess it. Accordingly, institutions that specialized in producing goods with enchanting visual symbols are deemed as visual artists or visual designers. Being an ethnographer with a visual art background, I think my habitual sensitivity in remembering certain visual symbols could serve as an aesthetic tool to thick description. Hence, I did not record any events on site, instead, I made infinite animated images few hours later to make use of my selective memory - also to avoid causing disturbance to the respondent.

In another sense, animated illustrations made private matters sharable and reviewable to a broader audience. In the observation, there were various examples of how the respondent would found her life events slightly embarrassing to share verbally, however when they were presented as remembrance of a past moment, she would find it touching. In this context, the art of animated illustrations is an abstract presentation method to fight an overly explicit reviewal without withdrawing the truths. The enchantment here lies in a humanly attempt to resist metaphysical laws by materializing an abstract kinship relationship, as to preserve a specific time and space in one’s life.

Attached the presentation prototype in the following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oXTM67w6dPADfsOnKqkpNER1o-rhxR5p/view?usp=sharing