At a community meeting this June inside the Blue Parkway Sun Fresh in east Kansas City, residents gathered around tables with large maps showcasing the path of U.S. Highway 71. With facilitators from the city, they discussed the many problems caused by the highway, and the improvements they want to see to make the neighborhoods around it safer.
Floating among the dozens of residents were local artists armed with markers and pencils, documenting the meeting and conversations through illustrations and sketches — “reportage-style drawing,” as artist Juan Carlos Franco described it.
“We sketch out what’s going on,” Franco said. “We draw what is interesting to us, and then eventually we start having conversations with people, and we’re able to eke out their ideas and manifest them visually.”…