Workshop Illustrating Poems

In this workshop we will look together at different strategies on how to accompany a poem with an illustration. We will experiment through diverse techniques focusing on processes that transform words to visuals and with an approach of deconstructing visual stereotypes. The poetic language is our directory, but we will ask ourselves to what extent our visual language can be just as challenging, if not even more. We take care of the art supplies, you bring your imagination!

Carmen José (she/they, 1991 Spain) is an illustrator, educator and activist with an MA at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (Germany) in Visual Communication with focus on Illustration and editorial Design. She is interested in questioning the reproduction of visual stereotypes, with focus on embodied processes. In her work, she aims to facilitate spaces for dialogue and coming together. In 2014, they initiated together with Kathi Seemann the project Papiercafé, a multifunctional collective space for Self-publishing & Café. She joined the independent publishing house Rotopol as co-publisher and author in 2016. A year later in 2017, they worked as part of the Aneducation team of documenta14 in Kassel and Athens (Greece). In October 2018 they moved to Rotterdam (Netherlands) for an artist residency at BAD Foundation and later on at NAC Foundation in the Wielewaal where they worked on a experimental research around critical thinking in visual education thanks to the research grant O&O from CBK Rotterdam. In July 2020 she initiated together with Kamiel Verschuren (NAC) the Growing Space in the Wielewaal neighbourhood of Rotterdam. A proposal for a social and cultural place from and for neighbours and artists in the form of a greenhouse to visit from outside 24/7 and keep safe distance for covid while redistributing cultural funding during times of lockdown. Since November 2020 they are a teacher and researcher in the Illustration and Social Practice departments at WDKA Art University in Rotterdam.