From Shadows: Revealing Academic Anxiety Through Graphic Design

Abstract

This article presents an artistic practice-led research that applies autoethnographic and phenomenological methods to investigate, design and illustrate the ways that academic anxiety manifests in the human experience. A subjective account of anxiety recorded through journaling is distilled into lucid themes that provide form and character to the complex and multifaceted phenomenon of anxiety prompted by academic stress in a year of COVID-19. At the centre of this research is the exploration of how collage and illustration techniques, in the form of thematic cards, may be used to communicate, reflect and provoke an emotional resonance and self-awareness to the viewers regarding the protean nature of anxiety. From Shadows is the resultant design artefact produced from this research, and contribute to current practice-related methodologies to empower the personal within the researcher-practitioner.