20 Medialities, Aesthetics and Materiality in Comics and Popular Visuals Arts

Chair: Maroua El Naggare, Ute Fendler

The study of comics acquired significant importance in academic research within interdisciplinary fields. In African Studies, comics are predominantly investigated under socio-historical and cultural perspectives. These approaches tend mainly to retrace the genealogy of comics on the continent (i.e. Christophe Cassiau-Haurie for the francophone context) to present an overview of the comics scene in specific countries (Ink & Pixel: 2017) and to examine the colonial representations within comics (Delisle, Mckinney). Although these contributions describe some of its aspects, comics’ aesthetics and medialities remain under-investigated. According to Thon and Wilde (2016), the mediality of comics is a complex and dynamic process wherein conceptual, material, technological, communicative and semiotic dimensions are at work.

This panel aims to bring artists – namely Deena Mohamed (Egypt) and Evan Sohun (Mauritius)- and scholars into a discussion revolving around the forms of mediality at play in contemporary graphic works to discuss concepts like “kinetic thinking”, “animating futures” in respect to the specific conditions of the medium they have chosen by combining verbal and visual elements. The trans/medial aspects of Mohamed’s comics involve the process of creating and translating in English and Arabic in both digital and print formats. By navigating between different forms of visual arts, Toudim, a hybrid character, could be read as a signature emphasizing the trans/medial aspect of Sohun’s art representation per se via questioning the representation of ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious minorities.

Through a trans/interdisciplinary approach, this panel aims to explore medial practices in Comics and other forms of visual arts. The investigative conversations and performative lectures between the panelists want to shed light on artists’ creative strategies, motivations, challenges, and visions from different African geographical and linguistic settings.