Drawn Animation as arts-based autoethnography

This paper explores the potential of drawn animation as an arts-based autoethnographic method making a strong link between storytelling practices, aesthetics, arts and humanities. The autoethnographic approach in this contribution aligns with evocative approaches to the analysis of personal experience within a social context that emphasises the value of emotion, intimacy, empathetic understanding, and storytelling. Arts-based research has in common with this take on autoethnography the fusion of art and science through storytelling, creative forms of scholarship, and the inclusion of the researcher as subject.   The paper explores the affordances and limitations of drawn animation when addressing compelling challenging emotional experiences and its potential to make a relevant social contribution through art. To do so, I reflect on my experience as a tutor of final year students' films and analyse three examples of drawn animated films that touch on delicate aspects of identity, change, and emotional distress. The main aspects of the selected autoethnographic animated short films move away from self-absorption or self-exposure for its own sake. The analysed short-animated films made by students are examples of autoethnographic research that provide self-understanding, empathy towards vulnerability, and stress the interrelational dimensions of an ever-changing identity. The short-animated film “I’m Fine'' uses a metaphorical narrative to talk about depression in men through a daydreaming situation of an astronaut struggling in outer space. The film “One Drop” is a subjective imaginary embodied journey through a sea of blood and blood cells to talk about the anxiety of waiting for an HIV test result. The film “Growth” explores the challenging emotional aspects of the experience of being transgender using the metaphor of being trapped into the fluid body of a monster that leads to transformation. The conclusions point at how autoethnographic drawn animation could impact the appreciation of Animation production stressing aesthetic, ethical and social considerations.