Paper Short Abstract:

Using my current research into how drawing can help us understand loss in the ill, elderly and dying as its focus, this paper will discuss the ethical problems of such a study. Collecting drawn ‘data’ through a series of unstructured, conversational, quasi-portrait-based interviews with two women both of whom are living at home – one of whom is 105 and the other in her 80s and living with dementia - I want to interrogate the moral appropriateness of this kind of drawn research.

Paper Abstract:

Using my current research into how drawing can help us understand loss in the ill, elderly and dying as its focus, this paper will discuss the ethical problems of such a study. Collecting drawn ‘data’ through a series of unstructured, conversational, quasi-portrait-based interviews with two women both of whom are living at home – one of whom is 105 and the other in her 80s and living with dementia - I want to interrogate the moral appropriateness of this kind of drawn research. Referring to the writings of the ethnographers Causey (2017) and Taussig (2011), the artist-critic Berger (2007) and reportage illustrator Netter (2024) and their ideas around drawing as “seeing”, “witnessing”, “embodiment” and “presence”, I will question explore the benefits to the sitter from such notions. Similarly, essays by Eaton (2020), Bell (2020), Hammer (2020) and Sontag (1979), will underpin my inquiry into the balance of power between artist and subject - looking specifically at issues around ‘the gaze’ in a post-colonial world, how to safeguard against the promulgation of drawn ageist stereotypes and, with reference to Cleeve et al (2021), ultimately, whether such drawn portraiture can stimulate its viewer’s perception of another’s feelings.