Hello and a very warm welcome to the illustration educators (ie) website. The hope is to develop a space where insights, ideas, discussions and resources can be shared. ie is designed to acknowledge and support our growing international community of illustration educators defined through mutual care, equality, inclusivity and shared curiosity about one another's educational practices. 

We are delighted to introduce the first submission to our online resource, and very grateful to our friends and colleagues, Jhinuk Sarkar and Hayfaa Al-Chalabi for this insightful and thought provoking inaugural piece in response to the provocation: who educates?

We hope that you enjoy reading, and listening to, this wide ranging discussion between Jhinuk and Hayfaa. Who educates?: A conversation between Hayfaa Chalabi and Jhinuk Sarkar lays the foundation for the forthcoming years activity. The discussion explores, among many other things, ideas of permission and authority, the nature and ‘geography’ of institutions, generational divide, interdependencies, reproductive labour, formal and informal spaces and the role of kindness, gratitude and instinct in educational processes. Hayfaa’s and Jhinuk’s perspicacity and experience are, we hope, ‘permission givers’ to potential contributors. The scope of their conversation preempts that range of responses that we hope to see and we encourage approaches that include all creative and academic forms, from visual essays, to audio recordings, to lesson plans and academic papers.