Making the invisible visible – this is what researchers Sally Pirie and Marie-Pierre Moreau have achieved with their unique research and art initiative. Through comics and drawings, they highlight the difficulties faced by carers in the academic world. At the exhibition opening, as part of WU matters.WU talks, and in two workshops, the project initiators discussed with participants how a “care-full” academic culture could be developed and how comics can be used in research. Care work often remains invisible – particularly in an academic world shaped by traditional ideas of performance and full-time careers, without interruptions or caregiving responsibilities. At the same time, carers are often seen as "disruptors" or “space invaders” who challenge the academic system. Through art and comics, the complex, often invisible experiences of carers and the emotional dimension of care work in academia are brought to the forefront. 

The exhibition can be visited until 29 October in Teaching Center 2.05. 

Sally Campbell Pirie, Professor of Child and Family Studies at the University of Massachusetts @Amherst College of Education and Director of the Comics-Based Research Lab at the University of Massachusetts; www.sallypirie.com 

Marie-Pierre Moreau, Professor in Sociology of Education, Work and Inequalities at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, where she is also the founding director of the Centre for Education Research on Identities and Inequalities.