The Global Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. John's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
About John
Lecturer in Illustration
PGT Co-programme lead: Digital Art and Technology portfolio
John Kilburn is an illustrator, researcher, and educator whose work explores how authorial, playful, and dialogic illustration can function as a method for interdisciplinary inquiry and knowledge co-production.
John's research sits at the intersection of illustration, communication design, anthropology, environmental humanities, health research, and participatory practice. Through drawing, storytelling, mapping, pop-up books, comics, and other creative methods, he investigates how visual practice can help communities, researchers, and organisations generate, share, and reflect upon forms of knowledge that are often difficult to access through conventional research approaches.
His projects have explored themes of health, memory, care, identity, place, and ecological change through collaborations with community groups, anthropologists, environmental researchers, and international partners. Work includes health communication projects in Uganda and Kenya, dementia and memory research, place-based research in the Lyn Valley through the Thin Space project. Recent collaborations in Malaysia explore how illustration and creative methods can work alongside Indigenous methodologies, anthropological research, and community-led knowledge practices to address environmental and cultural challenges.
Alongside his academic work, John maintains an active illustration practice. His illustrations, artists' books, zines, comics, and visual narratives have been published, collected, and exhibited internationally by organisations including the TATE, V&A, Thames & Hudson, Gestalten, Printed Matter New York, and the Yale Center for British Art.
