Connecting pictured and written worlds: can we translate the visual into academic text without losing its creativity?

There is an increasing move towards visual and creative methods of data production employing photographs, collages, film and walking narratives. However, there are a range of ethical issues and publishers restrictions around the inclusion of visual images in research outputs; which can render the visual invisible. When researchers come to publish this work, without these visual images, the creativity of their data is often constrained by academic conventions that impose dense, dry, flat prose as the communicative exemplar. The priorities of publishing can hinder our ability to write in an accessible way but when we are writing as a project of social justice it is important to engage both cognitively and emotionally with an audience. Drawing on research with mothers and daughters residing in a marginalised area in south Wales, UK, this paper explores how visual data productions can move from the world of pictures to the world of words but still retain their creativity. The paper focuses on impact by exploring processes of liberation through writing; and the ways in which poetic writing can exploit reflection, connect pictured and written worlds; and inspire an audience to make changes