Graphic Medicine Conference 2024
It was a dream come true to present at the 15th Graphic Medicine Conference in Athlone, Ireland. Thanks to the generosity of the Peter James Burns scholarship, I was able to contribute my academic research and creative work We Are Fireflies and discuss how, through the medium of comics and animation, we might tackle complex mental health issues that are shrouded in stigma and shame.
Graphic Medicine is a recognised field of inter-disciplinary research that explores the role that the medium of comics has in the discourse of healthcare. It encompasses a huge body of creative work and a burgeoning community of academics, health carers, authors, artists, and fans of comics.
My dissertation focused on visual narrative as a unique medium for communicating the lived experience of trauma. The basis for my research was ‘Unflattening’ - a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge - authored by Nick Sousanis. Nick was also the opening keynote speaker at the conference this year!
The conference theme was Draíocht the Irish word for Magic. We explored the myriad ways that comics spark imaginations and creativity to demonstrate different perspectives about health, illness, caregiving, and disability. It was the first time I talked so openly about some of the more personal aspects of my work, and it was an inspiring and strengthening experience. As an experiment in visual storytelling, We Are Fireflies successfully conveys the lived experience of trauma through visual narrative without sharing any explicit details, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps. I employed an ‘amphibious language’, as Nick describes as the “breathing in the worlds of image and text”. This processdeliberately included all the fingerprints and imperfections on the page, editing the film in such a way to communicate the messy, raw, fragmented experience of trauma, which was supported by an original underscore. The language of art, music and metaphor can unite reason with imagination with such immediacy and make these complex human experiences more relatable.
The feedback has been tremendous. Being a winning finalist at Raindance Film Festival is testimony to the film’s ability to communicate something deeper. It’s the personal stories that impact the most. I received a letter from a woman after seeing the film at a festival and she asked me if she could share it with her mother. She wrote to me again and said “I played my mum your amazing and powerful animation. She cried and said she wished she’d watched it when she was younger, maybe it could have helped her be stronger. She too has buried a lot and watching this has helped her to talk. It’s incredibly brave Sophie, and stunningly beautiful. Your work is important.”
If you’re interested in seeing the film, it is currently being screened on TrickFilm as part of the Australian Animate Festival. You’ll need to create an account to watch it, but it’s free.
So I want to say a massive THANK YOU to Graphic Medicine conference for giving a platform for sharing my exploration in visual narrative and to all the people involved in this community - the artists putting their own experiences on the page and all the professionals and academics that are continually pushing the boundaries and finding ways to use these stories to improve understanding and support.
