Cut & paste contraptions: exploring the power of mobile collage and in-situ creativity

Evans, Emily

London Met Repository

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Evans, Emily (2025) Cut & paste contraptions: exploring the power of mobile collage and in-situ creativity. In: 15th International Illustration Research Symposium. The Apparatus: The Role of Technology in Illustration, 20 - 21 November 2025, Koç University, Istanbul. (Submitted)

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Abstract

‘The currency of contemporary reportage drawing is in its proximity to its subject’ (Netter, 1994)
Illustration and image-making have a rich heritage of documentation of people and spaces within locations. From the French En plein air ‘outdoors’ in situ painting method to the informative authority of reportage illustration. Through exploration of my practice, collage, I have sought to develop a small self-made portable collage kit. A phone camera, thermal printer (which facilitates the machine-aided illustration providing the live printed materials), chinagraph pencil, glue, scissors, and mini sketchbook. Alongside a self-made contraption to hold all these items which facilitates the ability to work with the kit in an efficient way. Whilst there is in-depth writing into drawing I suggest more research into portable collage would be beneficial for practitioners and through this poster I will contrast my kit with other portable image-making kits and technology exploring historical and contemporary apparatuses. For example, illustrating machines such as portable printmaking kits, underwater drawing kits, and self-made contraptions and gizmos like the drawing boards used by the reportage illustrator Harry Morgan. Examining my own unique use of the kit through autoethnography alongside idiographic practice analysis of how a range of other illustrators and image-makers have used it, this poster explores how the process of using portable making kits results in a special kind of creative capability and outcome.

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11018:55354