The Canadian Paediatric Society, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and the UBC Comics Studies Cluster invite applications from comics artists to collaborate on an exciting new research-to-comics initiative. This project will translate youth perspectives on trauma-informed care into accessible, engaging comics that highlight young people’s lived experiences and insights.

About the Project

Youth across Canada experience trauma in diverse and overlapping forms—social, developmental, and intergenerational—and too often, their voices are absent from how health care systems and providers understand and deliver trauma-informed care.

This project is rooted in community-based engagement and was co-designed with a Youth Advisory Council (YAC). The YAC guides all aspects of the work, from consultation design to dissemination. Their involvement ensures that research reflects youth voices and that outputs are accurate, impactful, and meaningful.

Earlier this year, the project team engaged more than 50 youth from across Canada in discussions about what “safe care” means to them. These sessions generated key themes and messages directly from youth themselves, which will form the foundation of the comics.

We are now seeking comics artists to collaborate with the YAC and research team to create two case study comics (8–12 pages each) that communicate these youth perspectives on trauma-informed care. These comics will serve as knowledge mobilization tools for clinicians, policymakers, youth organizations, and the broader public.

Application Process

Please prepare the following materials for submission:

1. A short statement of interest (max 1 page) describing your approach to community-engaged storytelling and why you want to participate in this project.
2. A CV or résumé (max 3 pages).
3. A portfolio of 3–5 examples of relevant work (attachments or links).

Submission

Applications will be reviewed by the project team in collaboration with the Youth Advisory Council.

Send any questions to: biz.nijdam@ubc.ca

Submit application here

Climate change affects us all, and we all share the responsibility to address it. Climate Talks: Connecting Food, Health, and Biodiversity in a Changing Climate is a one-day interactive symposium designed to engage and activate citizens, students, and scientists in understanding the global connections between nutrition, environmental change, and climate change. Beyond presenting known facts, we seek to provide knowledge, opportunities for reflection, and pathways for transformative action.

The UBC Comics Studies Cluster invites applications from cartoonists and comics artists to create a graphic narrative on the relationships between insects, biodiversity and food systems as part of the day-long event Climate Talks: Connecting Food, Health, and Biodiversity in a Changing Climate at the UBC Botanical Garden.

The event’s focus centers on enabling transformative change on biodiversity – both in everyday life and across society. The event will emphasize transnational exchange between Germany, France, and Canada, supporting our overarching goal of developing a joint application for the current Horizon Europe Framework Program.

This gathering will feature a keynote address followed by a series of small-group conversations in which participants reflect on and respond to the keynote themes.

The selected artist will document and creatively interpret the day by:

• Producing a 3-5-page comic summarizing and intertwining two separate presentations on insect biodiversity and environmental impacts on food systems. The cartoonist will be charged with creating a graphic narrative that connects these two threads of the day’s event, either through a documentary-style presentation or by crafting a story that draws together the themes of the presentations.
• Creating a series of 1-page vignette comics (approx. 5 total) that capture the energy, insights, and reflections of the participant conversations.

The final collection will comprise approximately 8–10 pages and serve as a visual record of the day’s exchange of ideas.

Strangely, there’s a scarcity of visual art, photography, and graphic narratives when it comes to matters of language(s), translation, multilingualism and other aspects of linguistic life. Either you get clip art of diverse-looking people communicating with lots of hand gestures, an abstract representation of language conveyed in speech balloons with various alphabets, a clash of cultures, or a message “lost in translation”.

This project seeks to expand the visual language around these themes, inviting critical, conceptual, experimental, experiential, personal, and political work of various kinds that tests the boundaries and critical power of the concepts below.

We invite artists to compose a visual narrative on one or more of the following topics. Artists can interpret these themes freely, though we encourage artists to take topic’s associated survey (linked next to the concept) before making a proposal:

• Linguaphobia (fear of language(s)): https://forms.gle/G5ySdbp6cqZuWbbc8
• Linguistic Disobedience: https://forms.gle/aZTPyysJn9n6Nt4V7
• Linguistic Indifference: https://forms.gle/hZrNRHqdNFRGf4869
• The Monolingual University: https://forms.gle/7Z4xg6nxFw7n51RZ9
• Authoritarian Language: https://forms.gle/N9spkCFyitFnZvba7

Project description

The Comics Studies Research Cluster at UBC is seeking applications from cartoonists to work on an exciting new graphic novel project. The project seeks to capture the lived experience of Canadian immigration detention through comics.  The project will involve working with 2-3 individuals who arrived in Canada as refugees and were subject to immigration detention. The content of the graphic novels will then explore each individual’s story, based on interviews with the individuals and media produced in collaboration with them.

The goal of the project is to convey the day-to-day life of immigration detention – from the uncertainty and boredom to the trauma and loss. Each graphic narrative will be 20-30 pages long and will focus on different aspects of the experience as told by each individual.

What we are looking for

We are seeking 1-3 experienced artists from across Canada who are keen to engage with this topic and have the necessary background and skills to capture these complex human experiences through comics. Artists should be keen to work collaboratively (in person or via Zoom) with the subjects of their comics to co-produce the material and bring these stories to life. In particular, we seek applications from artists who have the capacity to engage with this difficult material and have the time to commit to the process of relationship-building required to create graphic narratives of roughly 20-30 pages each.

Project Timeline*

The project will begin on February 1, 2024, and will develop by way of the following stages (please note that date ranges are approximate and will be adjusted to account for vacation time and ensure workload balance):

Stage 1 (Feb 15-29, 2024): Meetings with the individuals whose stories we will be telling will be scheduled in person and /or via Zoom.  The goal of these meetings is to allow the artist to learn about and understand immigration detention and its experiences.

Stage 2 (March 1-April 15): The artist will receive a preliminary account of one individual’s story and additional research material. The artist will be asked to produce thumbnails for graphic narratives for review and approval. Thumbnails are due March 31st.

Stage 3 (April 15-July 15): The artist will begin creating the first graphic narrative. Drafts of the first graphic narrative will be due on or around June 30, 2024 (to be determined). The artist will be provided with comments and requested revisions within two weeks. The final version of the first graphic narrative is due on or around September 15, 2024.

Stage 4 (Fall 2024): The artist will be invited to join in various dissemination and launch events.

*this timeline is subject to change depending on the artists’ and participants’ availabilities. Proposed timelines with later start dates are also possible.

Compensation

Artists will receive compensation that aligns with their experience. We are committed to ensuring meaningful compensation and have the funding to offer a generous honorarium (up to $10,000 per graphic narrative) commensurate with experience.

Application Instructions:

Application materials should include the following in one PDF document:

• Letter of Interest (maximum 1 page)
• 3 examples of comic art (maximum 10 pages)
• OPTIONAL Creative Statement for working with these themes

Please submit your application by email to Dr. Biz Nijdam, Director of the UBC Comics Studies Cluster, at comics.studies@ubc.ca.

Applications are due Monday, February 5th, 2024, by 5 pm PST.  Shortlisted candidates will be invited for a brief interview via Zoom at a mutually convenient time. Artists notified of their selection by February 15, 2024.

Questions?

For more information or if you have any questions, please contact Dr. Biz Nijdam, UBC Comics Studies Cluster at comics.studies@ubc.ca.

This project seeks nine cartoonists to create nine short (8-12 page) comics based on interviews with the parents of neurodiverse children on their experience in the BC healthcare system. These interviews aimed to understand the process and experience of EUA (Exams Under Anesthesia) at BC Children’s Hospital for children and youth with complex behavioural needs.

Children with complex behaviour needs, such as those with autism, intellectual impairment, limited verbal capacity, and genetic syndromes, experience significant challenges in routine investigations (dental exams, blood work, investigations, and assessments). This can include aggression, self-injury, bolting, disrobing, and vocalizing and can be quite traumatic for all involved – child, parents/caregivers and clinicians. These behaviours limit their ability to engage with our medical systems. EUA is a process where sedation is utilized to facilitate these challenging but necessary medical interventions.

While these issues have been the subject of many traditional methods of interpretation in medical research, discussions on the experience of these children and families expressed in the form of academic papers are not accessible to non-academic audiences. Moreover, current approaches are based on written language, which is often incapable of capturing the complex, personal, and subjective experiences of these families and children.

This project aims to address these noticeable gaps by exploring, exposing, and centering the experience of these children and families through comic art.