Professor Institute of Design and Visual Interaction

Joost Grootens

Visualisation is both the subject and method of my research. Situated within artistic research, my work spans the mapping and study of visualisation tools and practices, as well as critical cartography, data visualisation, and pictogram design. Through analysis and speculative design, I examine how graphic forms produce knowledge, mediate interpretation, and shape what is recognised or overlooked.

jgro@kglakademi.dk

+45 41701918

Detailed research profile

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Joost Grootens

Visualisation is a method used by many disciplines, but at the Cluster for Visualisation Studies, we don’t just use it, we investigate it.

Cluster for Visualisation Studies

Visualisation is the process of transforming data, situations, or ideas into visual representations to make them accessible, provide insights, or reveal connections. The output includes visualisations, maps, pictograms, and illustrations. Visualisation is a key method employed by all the institutes of the Royal Danish Academy. The Cluster for Visualisation Design not only uses it as a design method, but also critically investigates the process and output, the theories that inform it, the technologies that are utilised, and the biases embedded within. In that sense, it can bring together the thinking and output across various institutes at the Academy.

Article: Deconstructing Representation

The Human Body in Pictograms

The Human Body in Pictograms (2026–2027, in collaboration with Pia Pedersen) is a design-led research project that investigates how visual representations of the human body both shape and are shaped by societal assumptions about normality, ability and identity. Pictograms occupy a peculiar position in public space: they are meant to be universal, neutral and self-evident, yet they often reproduce heteronormative, gendered and able-bodied ideals. As markers of authority – used by transport agencies, municipalities, healthcare institutions or government bodies – they do not merely guide; they communicate who is expected, who is imagined, and who is overlooked. In doing so, they participate in the production of exclusion, even when this is unintended.

Outcomes of the bachelor workshop 'The Human Body in Pictograms' on display at the Imagining the Future exhibition, Royal Danish Academy, 2025

Speculative pictograms in exhibition setting

Photo Karina Tengberg

Blind Maps and Blue Dots

The shift towards digital modes of production has fundamentally changed both cartography and graphic design. The omni-present computer, the interactive possibilities of digital media and the direct exchange of visual information through networks have blurred the distinction between designers and users of visual information. The PhD dissertation Blind Maps and Blue Dots (2020) explores the disappearing boundaries between producers and users of maps, using three mapmaking practices as examples – the Blue Dot, the location function in Google Maps; the Strava Global Heatmap, a world map showing the activities of a fitness app; and the “Situation in Syria” maps, a regularly updated map of the Syrian conflict made by an Amsterdam teenager.