Eca, Teresa Torres ( 2009) , "Twelve Visions of the World: Drawings from Young

People in Different Parts of the World", International Journal of the Arts in Society,
Volume 4, Issue 1, pp.301-316

Twelve Visions of the World: Drawings from Young

People in Different Parts of the World
Teresa Torres Eca, Associação de Professores de Expressão e
Comunicação Visual, Portugal

Abstract: In this presentation we intend to present the results of our international research study about
the interests of young people aged 15-18 years old as they are depicted in their drawings. The research
was conducted during 2006-2008 by a team of art teachers and art education researchers. During two
years several drawings were collected in schools in Israel, USA, Hungary, Mozambique, Australia,
Brazil, Spain, Croatia, Hong Kong, Greece and Portugal. From that study some drawings were
selected to illustrate the main themes selected by young people and their main concerns, feelings and
expectations. From our results we realised the need for understanding young peoples’ own culture,
its uniqueness and the influence of globalisation in the images produced by the youngsters.

Keywords: Drawings, Art Education, Visual Culture

[1. Introduction

The research was conducted during 2006-2008 by a team of art teachers and art education
researchers: Rachel Kroupp (Israel) and Bick Har Lam (Hong Kong) Alison Aune in Minnesota;
Jurema Sampaio Ralha, Denise Perdigão and Rosvita Kolb (Brazil), Emil Gaul (Hungary),
Georgia Kakourou Chroni (Greece), Ishii Masayuki (Japan) , Laura Morejon Corredoura and
Esther Collados (Spain), Venus Ganis and Kathy Mackey (Australia); Tembo João Sinanhal
(Mozmbique), and myself in Portugal.Excepting Tembo, all the researchers were members of the
International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA). InSEA (http://www.insea.org/) is an
international organisation for arts e ducators, gallery and museum educators and other people with
similar interests and concerns for education in the visual arts. InSEA’s main purposes are the
encouragement and advancement of creative education through arts and crafts in all countries and
the promotion of international understanding. The researchers aimed to understand students’
culture, their interests, values, and expectations through visual meanings because the more one
learns about the narratives of various members of a particular group and its history, heritage,
traditions and cultural interactions, the more one comes to understand its richness and complexity.
A project focused on personal environmental and cultural interests of young people could be

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interesting for the purposes of InSEA. Furthermore, a study about teen age interests through young
people’s drawings in different countries of the world would bring valuable data for research in
both art education and in education in general.

During two years, 1613 drawings were collected in schools from Israel (78 drawings),Japan
(123) , USA (31), Hungary (400), Mozambique (38), Australia (64), Brazil (242),Spain (62),
Croatia (150), Hong Kong (35), Greece (200) and Portugal (190). The drawings were made by
young people in schools selected by each researcher in their countries. By looking at or
‘Listening’ to the drawings, we realised the unique value as a mode of communication, and the
need for understanding young peoples’ culture, including the influences behind this culture.

2. General considerations about the samples of drawings

In the 1613 drawings, the interests revealed by the students were wide: feelings, human
relationships; natural or human provoked catastrophes; leisure times; war/peace;
ecology/pollution; ethics; patrimony; arts; popular culture; politics; future expectations; and
reflections about their inner self, nature and technology. The great majority of the drawings were
figurative, although there were some abstract drawings with titles relating to feelings and
emotions. We could not find significant differences between boys and girls drawings. It seemed
that girls were more inclined to draw topics related to shopping, fashion design, beauty and future
careers and boys more inclined to draw objects of desire such as cars and comic strips, Internet or
television cartoon heroes . We found significant difference in the topics of drawings from Africa
(Mozambique)
more concerned with war and disease, and South America ( Brazil) more politically ‘engagés’
and the rest of the drawings. We found drawings from Japan very colourful and ‘ happy' ( with
bright colours and strong contrasts) and drawings from The European Countries less colourful
( with cold colours and less chromatic contrasts) . We also found differences between East and
Western ways of representing relationships. Drawings from Hong Kong and Japan revealed a
strong sense of family and hierarchical relationships and more sense of belonging to the universe
than the drawings in the three western countries; this might be a consequence of different
philosophies and religions from Eastern and Western countries. We found more drawings about
consumerism in the Northern countries and more drawings about disasters and famine in the
Southern countries.

3. Research Approach and Data Analysis

As our study was to understand human experience and to identify images of representation
from human drawing, a qualitative inquiry approach was most appropriate as it oriented the
researchers to understand human thinking and action in a particular context (Munby, 1986; Ben-
Peretz, 1986; Akinson & Hammersley, 1994). The qualitative approach is basically an inquiry
rather than a rigid procedure. In qualitative research, participants are ‘given voice’ (Bogdan &
Biklen, 1992), researchers can look at individual human needs and concerns, and recognize
differences in human thinking and decisions. Grounded theory suggested by Strauss & Corbin
(1990) was adopted in analyzing both the textual materials and visual images becausee such
method lead to deep-level, fine-quality understanding of the researched. Each researcher was
expected to analyze the visual and written data according to the following research questions:

A. What themes or subjects of interests are present in young people’s

artworks?

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 B. What kind of local subjects, concepts and ideas are displayed by young
people’s artworks?
C. What kind of cross-cultural subjects, concepts, and ideas are displayed by
young people’s artworks?

Constant comparison was used under the ground theory approach; the analysis started with the
textual materials, as it helps researcher to understand the background of the works. Themes and
categories were produced while the textual data was quoted, in an additive process (Contas, 1992).
The logic of the themes and categories was understood both individually and as a whole. To
proceed further, the researchers developed categories and subcategories to systematize the data in
the drawings and description of the drawings (Strauss, 1982; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). So the data
became more manageable.
However, interpreting the visual data, helped by a short written description of the drawing and in
certain cases follow up interviews, was at the beginning a frustrating task. We started by
identifying subjects, themes and sub-themes in the drawings and counting the frequencies with
which these items appeared. We ended up with an enormous excel file, although we tried to
cluster, to relate topics in order to have some variables. But except in obvious topics, such as
concerns with environment, love, war/peace, counting teenagers obvious interests was not giving
us thick description and comparing numbers was not very useful. We also looked for variables
related to art language such as landscape, human figure, still life, for styles e.g. abstract, realist,
expressionist, linear, balanced. We looked for the sources of influence: arts; urban art; youth
culture; media culture; influences from local/national culture; and influences from global culture.
But this was not really helping us to interpret the visual data. We needed other ways to understand
the drawings. We needed to treat the data as visual documents, not written texts. We needed to
understand the meanings of the images, to deconstruct them, to go beyond the eye of the beholder,
to reach the intentions of the creator. Then we realized that we were in a familiar ground for
artists–– inter-subjective and intra-subjective knowing–– and we should use all our skills as both
artists art teachers combining our own process of art criticism and art production to decode the
messages in the drawings of young people . Rita Irwin (2007) in her concept of A/r/tography
recognized the need for inquirers to work from the identities of artist, researcher and teacher, as
we move through inquiry-laden processes.

We need to acknowledge that art works can be seen to be ‘an appropriate way of not only
recording events or thoughts but interpreting them in a way which exposes a greater number of
realities’ Hickerman ( 2007, p. 317). This led us to a totally different approach of interpretation ,
toward the method of conflicting images of art historian Didi- Huberman. According to Didi-
Huberman (2004), visual representation has an “underside” in which seemingly intelligible forms
lose their clarity and defy rational understanding, this underside, where images harbor limits and
contradictions, visual representation is a mobile process that often involves substitution and
contradiction and calls for subjective judgments. So, we started to cluster the images according to
their subjective meanings helped by the written descriptions of the drawings, we looked for what
was expressed and what was not depicted, searching for explicit and implicit messages.

Another direction we took was the influential talk of Michael Parsons in a conference in Maia,
Portugal in October 2008 in his development of artistic thinking process. Parsons (2008) used the

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Lakoff and Johnson’s concept of metaphor as the fundamental way in which we elaborate
meanings from our bodily experiences, to explain how metaphors can be a method of
interpretation . The metaphors call for an understanding of contextual and cultural considerations.
They must not be seen as truth claims, which are either right or wrong. Rather, we can dispute
them, offer arguments for and against them, and judge some as more powerful or better than others
(Parsons, 2008) . Finally we created conceptual categories as image and narrative constructing the
metaphors .

Drawing : Process and purpose:

Figure 1: ‘What's the point’, Croatia, 2007

Drawing was a process of interrogation. In many drawings in Croatia and also in other
countries, the message was a question. Drawing was a critical engagement of the author. Titles
like: ‘What’s the point?’, ‘I can’t explain…’ ‘ what’s going on?’ , ‘ doubts’, demonstrated the
student/artist questioning him or herself and questioning the viewer about philosophy, social
problems, psychological and personal. Of course this questioning attitude is typical of teenagers ;
they are keen to raise questions about everything and specially about their future or the future of
the world. Sometimes we, teachers, forgot to let students express their personal questions in the
classroom because we are too busy trying to teach visual concepts to fulfill the curriculum requests
and assessment constraints. We forget the purpose of visual communication and the core of our
subject.

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 Drawing was also a process for expression and reflection of feelings. Feelings such love,
friendship and confusion were observed in many drawings. These are also popular topics among
teenagers conversations. Teen-aged youth often feel confused , unhappy and not loved .Their
drawings express a very difficult period of their growing process, some of them touching the
boards of depression .

Figure 2: Portugal , 2007

But not all the drawings expressed negative feelings; love and friendship and music were
topics greatly depicted in happy colours and harmonies

Figure 3: Hungary, 2008

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Even if the beloved are survivals of a cruel war .

Figure 4: Mozambique , 2007

Drawing as a reflection of culture

There were themes related to local art, patrimony, local history, and local legends.
Influences from art history, western artists and local artists, painters, architects, as
well as craft, musicians historical sites and costumes were observed in many
drawings. On a minor scale, we observed drawings referring to literature and film

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 Figure 5: Hong Kong, 2007

Popular youth culture Japanese ‘ manga’ style drawings were observed in many drawings in
the samples from Spain, Portugal, Japan, Hong Kong, Brasil , Australia and USA .

Figure 7: Japan, 2006 Figure 6: Spain, 2007

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 Figure8: Israel, 2006 Figure 9: Hong Kong, 2007

The popularity of this kind of drawings was largely studied by visual culture researchers.
Comics are visual art forms that highly motivate children because they belong to their own cultural
contexts (Wilson,1999), Toku ( 2001) demonstrated that throughout adolescence Japanese children
tend to continue to acquire skills to express visual narratives in the form of ‘manga’ comics. We
found out that this phenomena was spread out to other countries. Maybe it is time for teachers and
art education curriculum developers to reflect on such drawing practices. Adams (2000) claimed
that the practice of comic production, so familiar to young people, works effectively if supported
by analytical criticism and visual awareness. Manga comics were not the only influences from
popular culture detected in the drawings, other media avatars, graffiti, ‘fanart’ and traces of other
global images were observed in the drawings. We suggest that such popular culture sources
strongly impact young people who use it to express ideas of self and society. As Manifold (2009)
found in her research about adolescents and the creation of culture, these findings may raise
questions about the need to reflect upon studio practices ‘that permit students to explore personally
relevant content, such as may be found on popular narratives, and enter into interactions that
reiterate those between craftsman and media, process, and community.’ (p. 19).

We found influences of both tangible and intangible patrimony from local and global sources.
This might be because the great majority of the students were from vocational art courses,
enabling them with the technical abilities and art history knowledge to draw their ideas and
opinions. It was also observed, however, that students from non vocational art schools were also
able to express themselves and to include local patrimony symbols in their drawings.

Figure10: Israel, 2006

National flags, national symbols, national heroes or references to local patrimony, and artists

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were observed in many drawings. Of course this awareness of local culture and patrimony is also a
product of school learning. But by including it in their free subject drawings students expressed
their sense of place and sense of belonging to a community by depicting historical or art symbols,
flags, football heroes, local architecture and other local images.

Drawing as ethical and political statement

Many drawings also included representations of geographical maps and the planet as a whole;
we found many drawings revealing not only a sense of geographical belonging but also an
awareness of the place and its relationship with the rest of the world.

Figure 11: Brasil, 2007

Some drawings expressed strong statements about the balance between rich and poor countries,
between North and South, and relationship between countries. We found many drawings treating
polemic socio-economic and political issues like violence, group diseases (anorexia, drugs, AIDS),
car accidents, alcoholism. It seems that teenagers are willing to have a voice about such issues
.Some drawings were visual statements about their authors’ beliefs and ethical options:

Figure12: Croatia; 2006, Title: Moment of blame Figure 13: Japan, 2006

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 Other drawings explicitly refer to politicians and media events involving corruption,
repression, war and terrorism .

Figure 14: Hong Kong, 2007

Figure 15: Brazil – Jundiai, 2006

5. Drawing as witnessing: mutual visibility

We found that some drawings with visual political statements represented the events in ‘stage’,
or ‘observed’, mentioning an observer ( the author?) witnessing the scene as a movie or television
spectator. The world is mediated, the author is not participating. This sentiment is reiterated by the
figure of the eye or the eyes, a symbol present in many drawings, symbol of someone watching or
witnessing. The drawings confirmed the visions that as citizens we share mutual visibility, seeing
others, representing self as an act of communicative knowing (Habermas, 1976).

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 Figures 16: Brazil – Jundiai, 2006 Figure 17: Australia, 2007

Figure 18: Japan 2006 Figure 19: Israel 2006

6. Visions of the world

In the drawings of the boys and girls there are critical judgments about society in general and
matters as feelings, violence, nature, genetic manipulation, ecology, war and peace. There is hope
and anger independently of the country of origin.

6. 1. A world of Technology
The world of digital technology has opened up immense possibilities for communication and
creativity (Lessig, 2004). Artists and arts educators are more and more finding a place in this
revolutionary imaginative and creative space ( Alexenberg, 2009). The drawings critical explored
the topic. In a world full of technological devices, it was not surprising to see how young people
saw it, sophisticated weapons killing people in drawings from Mozambique, Cyborgs and issues
about genetically modified human beings in drawings from Australia, a world of fast
communication : cell phones, speed and megalopolis drawings from Europe. A world were the
symbol of money and bombs is often represented .

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 Figure 20: Brazil, 2006 Figure 21: Australia 2007

Students were explicitly making judgments of values of human behavior in matters of war ,
technology and ethics
6. 2. A condemned world?
The Place of natural environments was represented as a myth, by ‘naïve symbols of flowers ,
lost paradises with palm trees and other stereotyped images of landscapes or landscapes through
art . However many drawings raised questions about ecological concerns, about water restrictions (
specially in Australia and Mozambique), pollution, car pollution, global warming and careless for
the planet caused by economical greed. The drawings from Greece expressed a great concern with
a South European reality: Burning forests. In all the countries we found ecological concerns as a
main focus of teenager’s interests. It is time to acknowledge the extent to which the young people
are aware of the problem and bring their voices to the persons who can decide questions about the
balance of the planet. Young people consider the threats to our planet and nature as the main
problem of the society and they elected the topic for their main concern or interest.

Figure 48: Croatia, 2007

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 A great majority of drawings raised such questions in their titles as in a Israeli Drawing: Why
does the sky cry?’ Or the visual question in the Croatian drawing : ? Why is the Earth Crying?

6.3. A world of spectators

Figure 20: Portugal, 2007

In Figure 20 the student represents a rabbit (character from a North American television
cartoon ) sitting over a branch of a tree (the tree is the only coloured element) observing the fallen
down twin towers, a bullet train makes a speedy circle over the buildings and an army of
communication tools (cell phones) is ready to leave like bees. In the interior of the circle is the
watching eye. According to his author the composition deals with space and time, a conception of
space and time contemporary of the quantum theory.. But, according to the researcher this is a
scene mediated by a popular culture hero from the television , seen from the point of view of the
media spectator . Where is the place of experience and reality? Is it only a matter of watching the
world from a media technology point of view ( the rabbit) or is it from the point of view of the eye
in the middle of the elliptic speed trajectory ? Who is watching who?

6. 4. A world of tolerance?
The drawings from Vukovar, the city who suffered more during the war, were much more
happy in colours and the themes more humanistic, appealing for hope and tolerance, such as the
symbolic still life below . Why does a child who experienced the war prefers to represent her town
and hope in the future with a bowl of apples using hot colours in the center of the composition? Is
there a desire to express the peace of a quite stable home, a home she probably lost during the war,
the desire for the essential?
This drawing is quite different from the drawings from USA, Portugal and Hungary which
quite often represent objects of fashion, gadgets, or trips to other countries.

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 Figure 21: United in their differences - 2 embraced persons in the dark world, Croatia 2007

Figure 22: Bowl with apples - represents my town & hope for its future. Croatia, 2007

And what about the drawings from students in Mozambique who lived since birth, in the terror
of war, water restrictions and natural catastrophes as they depicted in their drawings ? ‘ Shelter of
the life’ was the title of one drawing representing a place to hide , but many others represented
love, friendship and compassion.

6.5. A divided world

Many students represented the world as a duality, a conflict between past and future or
between Good and Evil. Between peace and war, green planet and pollution, art/patrimony and
money.

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 Figure 23: Croatia, 2007

7.’ Listen’ to the drawings

All the teenagers who participated in this project had the opportunity to produce their own
visual messages about the world, their expectations, interests and their own concerns. Some of
them had access to sophisticated linguistic forms created by the new media combinations
conciliating words, sounds and images, some others drew with very humble materials and
techniques. All of them revealed how critical engaged they are with the world . By looking at or
‘Listening’ to the drawings, we realized the unique value and the need for understanding of young
peoples’ own culture, and the influences behind them. We found young people used drawing as an
interrogation, to question their nature, feelings, emotions as well as their relationships with others.
We discover how worried young people are with issues like threats to environment, war, diseases
and political events. We found how they see the planet as a whole and themselves or their country
having a place in that world. They revealed an awareness of the richness and uniqueness of their
culture as well as demonstrating a strong use of visual symbols from global communication and
global culture. They critical denounced hegemonies of nations, corruption, and fears. They
denounced a society where time and money are the most important values on a planet ready to
explode at any moment. We noticed how they represent themselves, confused, afraid, surrounded
by high technological tools, threatened by the ethical limits of science. The interpretations of the
drawings revealed student/artists as double spectators: watching and being watched. And finally in
our interpretations we saw how young people represent the world in permanent conflict, always in
duality but also with hope in the future claiming for mutual understanding and tolerance. The
embodied act of drawing was critical and self-reflective for the students, an act of visual
communication which drew significantly on the past, the present and the future. The student/artists
Created narratives that served as metaphors through references to heritage and visual culture.
Teachers, parents, and those who are responsible for educational reforms should listen to young
people silent voices through their drawings and start new dialogues in orientations to curriculum
providing praxis that allows the performative act to centre a more critical way of ‘seeing’. As
Kathryn Grushka ( 2008) wrote :‘This praxis provides a deep level of personal meaning within a
legitimate individual context and moves the student towards an understanding of how mutual

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visibility, seeing others, representing self, as an act of communicative knowing, informs
becoming’ (p.311).

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