A visual diary to capture the ideas and moments of an event, designed for the participants and intended to spark their curiosity
In November 2025, Bologna hosted “Queering the museum”, an initiative that we co-conceived and co-organised with the European network NEMO – Network of European Museum Organisations, ICOM Italia’s “Gender and LGBTQ+ Rights” Working Group, the Municipal Museums Department of the Comune di Bologna and Attitudes_spazio alle Arti aps, under the patronage of ICOM Italia. A day of reflection, learning and discussion among cultural professionals, researchers and queer communities from across Europe, exploring new ways for museums and the LGBTQIA+ community to work together.
Capturing the moment in drawing
To capture the sense of community fostered by this day, we teamed up with illustrator Gianluca Sturmann to create a visual diary that not only captures the key ideas that emerged but also recounts the various stages of the event in a simple way, making it accessible even to those who were unable to attend. As well as moments linked to the speakers’ contributions at the morning conference and the feedback from the afternoon workshops, the drawings capture all those seemingly minor moments and situations that help make a day special and which can spring to mind with the spontaneity of a comic strip, employing humour but also an awareness of the context and the topics discussed. Finding the right visual approach was a crucial process. We wanted to use mark-making to ensure the diary conveyed a sense of unity and collaboration, capturing both formal and informal moments and the joy of being together. Faces, situations, gags and jokes, bright colours and contrasts, text in various sizes and links between words and concepts all fit organically and fluidly into the product we conceived, which we specifically wanted to be “queer”!
An event transformed into a story
This idea gave rise to more than twenty illustrations, which were created on the spot throughout the day, then coloured based on the event’s visual identity, specifically the colours and typography of the graphics, before being compiled into a document that was sent to participants and made available to browse online. The various pages illustrate the day’s events in chronological order, from the very first moment of arrival right through to the afternoon workshops. After the event, each participant received their own visual diary, allowing them to revisit the different moments simply by turning the pages, as in a picture book. The concepts conveyed through the illustrations are also easier to remember than those presented in plain text.
A tool for storytelling
Each illustration has been designed to be printed individually in postcard format, or even as a poster, to brighten up a space or to send to others, helping to spread the atmosphere and the ideas that emerged from the day, and to share and recount the experience.
A way to help promote and share values and ideas relating to the importance of museums opening up to communities and welcoming those who are still under-represented within them.
Look through the PDF:
The importance of documenting
When a particularly enriching event comes to an end, we always want to ensure that the values that emerged during the moments we shared continue to resonate within us in the future. We came up with the idea of the visual diary with this idea in mind: a compendium to return to whenever you like, in a simple and dynamic fashion.
Gianluca Sturmann
Are you working on creating an event and wondering about how to deal with all the ideas that might arise during this process? Let’s have a chat about it!
