Drawing complexity: a research-creation approach in science mediation

This article explores drawing as an epistemic instrument for analysing the complexity of a science mediation initiative. Grounded in research-creation, the epistemology of visual thinking, and systemic modelling, it examines the “Science of Superheroes” workshop, an informal education program where French middle school students create superheroes fighting environmental catastrophes by mobilising scientific knowledge and fiction. Conventional research tools (verbatim transcripts, observation grids) proved insufficient to capture the plurality of actors, temporalities, and types at play. A graphic methodology was therefore developed, combining three complementary types: field sketches produced in situ, formal sketches elaborated a posteriori, and systemic formalisations. Articulated in a spiral-like iterative process, these types revealed the central role of the Fiction-Knowledge dialogic and identified differentiated modes of functioning among the initiative’s dimensions. The discussion addresses contributions to researchers’ reflexivity and science mediators’ training, while acknowledging limitations regarding reduction, graphic biases, and transferability.