The Chicago Chapter sponsored Alex Robins for a circumnavigation in 2006. His research topic was "Political cartoons and their influence on international political culture".

Cartoons criticize, analyze, and shape political dialogues worldwide. His project will document how political cartoons shape public political discourse both nationally and internationally. The project will collect, contextualize, and conceptualize cartoons from around the world. In each country Alex will collect print media, observe and interview cartoonists and other key individuals. His goal is to produce a unique account of political discourse and visual culture as well to amass a collection of currently undocumented art.

To see the details of his journey, click here. You can follow this website during his trip and it will be periodically updated with his reports and photos.

Alex and the famous Hungarian cartoonist Marabu are holding the Circumnavigator Club flag outside the train station in Budapest, which was designed by the iconic French engineer Eiffel.
Read Alex's dispatches and see more photos. The Northwestern NewsCenter interviewed him when he returned.

Alex Robins grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota where he attended Northfield High School. Even though there were far more cornfields than art museums he has always been fascinated by art.

He is currently at Northwestern University, double majoring in Studio Art and Philosophy, where there are far more museums than cornfields. He has for a number of years been the staff cartoonist for the Daily Northwestern. He has had formal work shown in galleries in Minnesota, Chicago, and recently Sarajevo.

Alex is a member of two experimental music ensembles and a group that produces short comedic films. Alex has also written and directed several plays and performance art pieces on campus and around Chicago.

He hopes the research he is doing for the Circumnavigators Club will help document a poorly understood art (the international political cartoon) and to inform his own creative endeavors in the future.