creative methods

counter- archive

drawing · probes · zines · co-design

SonisaNoun

Arts-based design researcher · Design anthropologist Research portfolio. Creative and participatory methods, drawing, body mapping, cultural probes, zines, co-design, applied to health, care and public life: women's health, festival safety, home nursing, sleep, disability, male fertility. Cambodian, based in Sheffield.

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portrait, 2026

CONFIA 2026, Coimbra

Genkies Care, C-Mine, Dec 2025

Design anthropologist

Erasmus Mundus MFA in Design and Health Care: LUCA School of Arts · University of Aveiro · Sheffield Hallam University, 2025–27.

Eight studies, 2025–26 · Belgium · Portugal · Cambodia · online

finalist, Women of the Future Awards SEA 2026

Design for health · health literacy · women's health · decolonial and arts-based methods · visual communication

Scraps can be moved

Curriculum vitae

Arts-based design researcher and design anthropologist. MFA candidate on the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Design and Health Care (2025–27) after seven years of advertising art direction in Phnom Penh. Works with creative and participatory methods, drawing, body mapping, cultural probes, zines and co-design, across health, care and public life; two proceedings papers and a conference presentation in 2026.

Education

Master of Fine Arts in Design and Health Care (Response_Able Futures)Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree, EQF Level 7, 120 ECTS. LUCA School of Arts, Belgium; University of Aveiro, Portugal; Sheffield Hallam University, UK. September 2025 to August 2027, in progress.
Bachelor of Arts in Visual CommunicationPhnom Penh University of the Arts, Cambodia, 2016–2021.

Professional experience

Senior Art DirectorHAVAS Champagne, Phnom Penh, June 2024 to August 2025. Integrated campaigns for regional and multinational clients across television, digital, print, activation and social media; directed cross-functional creative teams.
Art Director, then Senior Art DirectorMSA (Marketing Solutions Asia), Phnom Penh, November 2019 to June 2024; Senior from January 2023. Clients included Pepsi, TikTok, Wing Bank and Heineken.
Lecturer (part-time)Phnom Penh University of the Arts, January to June 2018. Taught drawing to trainee early-childhood educators.
Creative DesignerEDGE Advertising; Digital Communication OfficerSociaven. 2017–2019.

Awards and bursaries

Finalist, Women of the Future Awards Southeast Asia 2026Profession category, in association with NTT DATA.
Erasmus Mundus Joint Master ScholarshipEuropean Education and Culture Executive Agency / European Union, 2025–2027.
Conference bursary, International Creative Research Methods Conference, Manchester, September 2026.
Phnom Penh Design Festival, featured panel artistCertificate of Appreciation, Phnom Penh University of the Arts, 18–19 October 2024.

Training

Collaborative Research in Prey Lang: Experiences, Methods and OutputsCenter for Khmer Studies, August 2026.
Selected CICADA representativeWPS Pillars and Policy Alignment training, SILAKA / The Asia Foundation AMPLIFY Programme, August 2026.
Gender as a Cross-Cutting Tool for Understanding, Diagnosing and Solving ChallengesUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona, July 2026.
Applied Anthropology Network Mentorship (mentee)EASA Applied Anthropology Network, June 2026.
Research Communication Lab: Mastering Academic Article WritingTaylor & Francis Group, May 2026.
Beyond Self: Autoethnography and Post-Qualitative ResearchUniversity of Stavanger, spring 2026.
ARC: Artistic Research CompetencesLusofonaX, March 2026.
ASEAN-UK Advancing Creative Economy: Hybrid Creative Economy Policy Training ProgrammeBritish Council and UK Mission to ASEAN, June 2025.

Memberships and service

EASA Applied Anthropology NetworkMember.
Design History SocietyMember.
CICADA, Creative Industries of Cambodia Association for Development and AdvocacyIndividual Member and Visual Arts Sector Representative. Represented CICADA at Creative Café, Mekong Forum 11th Edition, July 2025.

Languages

KhmerNative.
EnglishFull professional proficiency; CEFR C1 listening, reading and spoken interaction.

eight studies, 2025–26

Research

Eight studies, 2025–26, in Belgium, Portugal, Cambodia and online, all built on creative and participatory methods: drawing and body mapping, cultural probes, zines, co-design, systemic mapping and autoethnography. Three were commissioned by partners (Stad Genk and Genk on Stage; Wit-Gele Kruis; Sint Gerardus); two are published in peer-reviewed proceedings and one as a reviewed poster. Each opens on its own page.

Fieldwork: Genk and Diest, Belgium · Aveiro, Portugal · Phnom Penh, Cambodia · remote pilot across ten countries via Prolific
Creative methods: Participatory drawing and body mapping · cultural probes (the Safety Locker, meme boards, threadboards) · zine-making · co-design and rapid prototyping · systemic mapping · visual elicitation · autoethnography, sketching and Polaroid · alongside surveys, expert and clinical consultation and thematic analysis
Participants: Peers; women and men recruited through Prolific; practising clinicians; a sexologist and a clinical psychologist; a harm-reduction manager; municipal and festival staff; home-care nurses; university students; a special-education classroom and its carers
Outputs: Two proceedings papers, one reviewed poster, one conference presentation, one research-seminar presentation, a four-stage method, a festival safety and care campaign, a home-nursing toolkit, a wearable prototype, a co-designed zine, two published essays

Study 01 · 2025–26Tracing the UnspokenEarly development of an analog drawing framework for women's health advocacy: can a time-bounded act of drawing by hand record what clinical documentation leaves out, and can peers and clinicians read it with care?open study ↗

Study 02 · 2026It Takes TwoHow can communication design reduce men's avoidance of reproductive-health information without relying on shame or fear?open study ↗

Study 03 · 2025Genkies CareA festival safety and care campaign for the city of Genk: what do festival-goers already do for each other, and how can a city campaign move from prohibition to peer care?open study ↗

Study 04 · 2026Mapping What Systems Cannot SayA methodological hypothesis for decolonial systemic design in gender-based violence work in Cambodia.open study ↗

Study 05 · 2025Designing for OneA wearable leg-support strap for a non-verbal boy with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, worn over everyday sneakers instead of heavy orthotic boots.open study ↗

Study 06 · 2025–26Atlas of NoticingAn autoethnographic experiment in positionality: what a Cambodian designer trained in advertising notices in a Belgian town, recorded by sketching, photographing and journaling, and what that noticing does to her research practice.open study ↗

Study 07 · 2026Sleeping FairyHow might simple, crafted prototypes help university students map their personal sleep disruptors and reflect on their habits?open study ↗

Study 08 · 2025Systemic Patient AgencyHow might we equip home-care nurses to create a care setting that enhances patients' agency for holistic welfare?open study ↗

what the form cannot hold

Graphic silences

A term from Drawing the Unspoken (Graphic Medicine Europe, 2026): the places where the design of a clinical document, an intake form, an information graphic or a service map, decides in advance what cannot be recorded. The research starts from those places and asks what a hand-drawn account can hold that the form does not.

Intake · women's health
constructed example, no patient

Filed · not read

Patient

Presentingpelvic pain, intermittent

Onsetapprox. 6 months

Severity4 / 10

Cycleirregular

Moodnormal low anxious

Sociallives with partner

Plananalgesia, review 3/12

the margins, in red ink

Affective Systemic Mapping is a hand-drawn method for recording embodied experience that clinical documentation leaves out, so that the drawing can sit beside the record as a counter-archive. It was developed independently, outside supervision, and tested in three phases with 36 people: a peer session, a remote pilot across ten countries, and a review by practising clinicians.

The form and its annotations are a constructed illustration. No participant's drawing or record is reproduced on this site.

four stages, drawn by hand

Affective Systemic Mapping

Four stages, as set out in Tracing the Unspoken (CONFIA 2026, pp. 508–517). Framed as a methodological and participant-centred contribution, not a diagnostic or therapeutic tool.

Body as archiveThe participant's body is treated as the first record: pain, tension and memory that have not reached a file.
The analog mark as inquiryDrawing by hand, on paper, within a bounded time. The mark is the question, not an illustration of an answer.
Externalisation as co-witnessingThe drawing is looked at with the maker, by peers or clinicians, rather than interpreted about her.
Reflexive learningThe maker returns to the drawing and decides what it means and where it goes.

Sonisa presenting Affective Systemic Mapping at CONFIA 2026 — Presenting the framework, CONFIA 2026, Coimbra, 26 June 2026

Drawing pages on the desks at the Graphic Medicine Europe guided-drawing session — Guided-drawing session, Graphic Medicine Europe, Amsterdam, 9 September 2026

2026

Writing and talks

Peer-reviewed proceedings, presentations and published essays, 2026. The DRIVE poster is co-authored with two academic supervisors; the rest are single-authored.

A lecture room at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam during the Graphic Medicine Europe conference, with drawing pages on the desks — **Drawing the Unspoken**Inaugural Graphic Medicine Europe Conference, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Cross Comix, Rotterdam. Presented in person, 9 September 2026, with a live guided-drawing session for attendees.

Sonisa presenting at the lectern, CONFIA 2026 — **Tracing the Unspoken**CONFIA 2026, 13th International Conference on Illustration and Animation, Coimbra, 25–26 June 2026. Full paper in the peer-reviewed proceedings, pp. 508–517; presented 26 June 2026.

2026 · 10Designing Past Avoidance: Pareidolia as Productive Ambiguity in Male Fertility Communication DesignWith J. Quental and L. Ferreira. DRIVE26: Design Related Investigation, ESMAD, P.PORTO, Book of Posters, p. 71. ISBN 978-989-36738-2-9. Poster presented; online presentation 15 October 2026. Book of postersPoster
2026 · 10Remembering as a Form of MeetingVisual essay. Roots Literary Magazine, Issue 1, Birds of a Feather. Roots LiteraryEssay
2026 · 10Mapping What Systems Cannot Say: A Methodological Hypothesis for Decolonial Systemic Design in Gender-Based Violence Work in CambodiaProceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD15, Turin. Paper talk online, 9 October 2026. ProceedingsPaper
2026 · 09Drawing the Unspoken: Hand-Drawn Testimony as Decolonial Counter-Archiving in Women's Mental HealthInaugural Graphic Medicine Europe Conference, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Presentation and guided-drawing session, 9 September 2026. Abstract: doi:10.5281/zenodo.24045125Talk
2026Unravelling the WeightSubmission Track feature with artworks. Riwaq: The Journal, Al-Mujadilah, Qatar.Essay
2026 · 06Tracing the Unspoken: Early Development of an Analog Drawing Framework for Women's Health AdvocacyProceedings of CONFIA 2026, 13th International Conference on Illustration and Animation, IPCA, pp. 508–517. Presented in Coimbra, 26 June 2026. Chapter · doi:10.48766/2135-j335Paper
2026It Takes TwoResearch seminar presentation, University of Aveiro.Seminar
In reviewWhen the Walls Spoke: An Autoethnography of Hostile Environments in a Youth Training ProgrammeJournal of Autoethnography. Manuscript under peer review.Under review

acrylic on canvas, 2024–25

Paintings

Self-taught painter; acrylic on canvas; hands and flowers as the recurring subjects. Exhibited at the 2nd Ekarieach Multi-Arts Exhibition, Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra, January 2025 (theme: Water); Expo Metro Barcelona, 16–29 June 2025; and Ekarieach All-Stars: Identity, Sofitel Phnom Penh Phokeethra, 17 January to 28 February 2026. Featured panel artist, Phnom Penh Design Festival, October 2024.

Painting: a large cracked hand submerged in blue water — **Hand of Paradox**2024. Acrylic and textural paste on canvas, 102 × 76 cm. A cracked, drought-marked hand reaching out of water; gesso texture on the water's surface carries written messages. Submitted to the 2nd Ekarieach Multi-Arts Competition (theme: Water); shown at Expo Metro Barcelona, June 2025.

Painting: a hand grips a glowing branch bound by a thick red rope, over swirling blue water — **The Weight of Tradition**2025. Acrylic on canvas. The red string bracelet of Cambodian blessing, grown into a rope; a hand gripping a glowing date branch, the symbol of marriage; the rope loosening into water. Primary artwork for *Unravelling the Weight*, Riwaq: The Journal; shown in *Ekarieach All-Stars: Identity*, 2026.

Painting: a hand cradles a candle whose flame has become a sunflower, on blue — **Flame**2024. Acrylic on canvas. A hand cradling a candle, the flame transformed into a sunflower, the hand blended with the melting wax. Made under the theme "Enlightened Expression"; supplied to Riwaq: The Journal, 2026.

Painting: pink roses and peonies in thick palette-knife strokes — **Self-Liberating**Acrylic on canvas, palette knife. Roses and peonies; the first canvas in six years, and the start of the return to painting. Supplied to Riwaq: The Journal, 2026.

Contact

Email: sonisanoun@gmail.com
University of Aveiro: sonisanoun@ua.pt
Sheffield Hallam University: sonisa.noun@student.shu.ac.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sonisanoun
ORCID: 0009-0005-9599-9236
Google Scholar: Profile
Commercial design portfolio: sonisanoun.com

open to doctoral opportunities

Arts-based and participatory research for health, care and public life; design for health, visual communication and health literacy. Manuscripts under review are available on request.