# Event Details - **Event Name**: Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop - **Event Start and End Date**: Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 12:00 pm – Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 02:00 pm - **Event Description**: A hands-on visual ethnography workshop, El Helou invites participants to create a comic or visual narrative.About this EventSketching the Social: You Don’t Need to Know How to Draw to Do Visual EthnographyWhat stories can surface when we observe the world around us through drawing and imagination? In this hands-on visual ethnography workshop, anthropologist Maya El Helou invites participants to create a comic or visual narrative based on collected fieldnotes, a memory, or everyday interaction. Embracing play and experimentation, this workshop aims to stretch the boundaries of how we think about ethnographies. The leading question for this workshop is how do comics and graphic narratives help us understand and interpret our social realities? Combing fieldwork, media, and storytelling, a visual approach to ethnography transforms how research is created, conveyed, and engaged. As El Helou underscores, it asks us to “feel the affect of the visual, which complicates, completes, or makes visible what the written word cannot do.” [1] El Helou will lead discussions on the ethical tenets that guide visual ethnography rooted in lived experience rather than detached observation. True to the workshop’s title, drawing experience is not needed—movement through campus spaces is welcomed for the fieldwork component.[1] Maya El Helou in conversation with Blackwood staff, May 14, 2026.No experience necessary. Free and open to all.Snacks and refreshments will be provided.Maya El Helou is an anthropologist, comic and visual artist, and writer whose multimodal ethnography explores queer and trans life, affect, state violence and Necropolitics in Beirut. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and Sexual Diversity Studies from the University of Toronto, where she has also taught courses in anthropology, gender, and sexuality studies, as well as at OCAD University. Her dissertation and forthcoming graphic ethnography, Queer and Trans Antagonism Against the Consortium of Let Die in Beirut, is a combination of visual storytelling and ethnographic theory. El Helou’s research and teaching center on collaborative and creative pedagogy that makes scholarship both critical and accessible.DirectionsClick here for a detailed campus map and here for directions to UTM.AccessibilityThe Blackwood Gallery is located in the Kaneff Centre on the ground floor. The building is on the south side of campus near Inner Circle Road, adjacent to the campus’ main public transit stop and Student Centre. It features open spaces, round sloped corners, and windows to facilitate visual communication and navigation. Accessible multiuser gendered washrooms are located on the ground and lower levels. The building is AODA-compliant, with wide doorways and powered doors.This event will include some movement across the campus. Accessible elevators, powered doors, and curb cuts are in place throughout.The Classroom Public ProgrammingAn event series on experimental education, movement, and creative pedagogyCo-curated by Fraser McCallum and Jacqui UsiskinRooted in is an invitation to enact alternative modes of learning amid educational austerity that erodes access, experimentation, and critical inquiry. Running alongside the lightbox exhibition, a four-part program series heeds this call throughout the summer. Led by guest contributors whose research spans performance, anthropology, critical disability studies, and social justice education, this program animates reflexive, embodied, and community-sustaining pedagogies. Sessions will foreground culture-rooted practices and plural forms of knowledge-making, engaging choreography, accessibility, illustration, storytelling, dance, and photography as tools for shared learning and artmaking. As in Benohoud’s Classroom, learning will unfolding through collective inquiry, dialogue, and play.Visit our website for full program descriptions and contributor biographies. - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/mississauga/sketching-the-social-visual-ethnography-workshop/100001990575477839 - **Event Categories**: fitness, Workshops, Art, fine-arts, Exhibitions, literary-art - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 - **Event Highlights**: - Duration: 2 hours - Location: Blackwood Gallery - Languages: English ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: CAD ## Event venue details - **city**: Mississauga - **state**: ON - **country**: Canada - **location**: Blackwood Gallery - **lat**: 43.5499582 - **long**: -79.66630559999999 - **full address**: Blackwood Gallery, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Canada ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events7/banners/3e27db74944a8e30b15598aee78780098f66191ae9673528b2a8ce3ecaa8a715-rimg-w1200-h600-dcedfbe2-gmir.jpg?v=1781072670 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop being held? - **A:** Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop takes place on Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 12:00 pm to Wed, 22 Jul, 2026 at 02:00 pm at Blackwood Gallery, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Canada. - **Q**: Who is organizing Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop? - **A:** Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop is organized by Blackwood Gallery. - **Q**: Who is this event for? Is it right for me? - **A:** Sketching the Social: Visual Ethnography Workshop is ideal for curious learners, students, and skill-builders looking to gain hands-on knowledge and practical expertise in a focused, interactive setting. Whether you're a first-time attendee or a longtime enthusiast in Mississauga, this event is thoughtfully curated to deliver a standout experience worth every moment. 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