While there is a burgeoning body of literature on visual methods inethnography, including drawing and illustration as method for collectingand exploring data, little has been written about how artistic illustrationscan be used as a representational method for finished ethnographic texts.Based on an illustrated ethnography–a PhD thesis on sport pedagogy inyouth detention–this paper explores what artistic illustrations can do forrepresentations of ethnographic texts. An important starting point of the paperis that artistic illustrations are purpose-full–they can be used strategically tohighlight some details over others, thus making it possible for researchersto selectively accomplish several aims when it comes to representation.Particularly, we focus on ethical, aective, and descriptive purposes for usingartistic illustrations when publishing research on sport in total institutions.We present selected illustrations from the thesis together with analytical andprocedural commentary to shed light on some strategic thinking behind theproduction of the illustrations. Finally, we conclude with some reflectionson the methodology and discuss some further considerations for illustratingethnographic texts in terms of benefits, risks, and possibilities.