This was a conversation I went to at House of Illustration which was held between illustrators, authors, and directors in which innovative approaches to visual storytelling were explored to provide new perspectives on sensitive issues. They were expanding on the themes of House of Illustration’s exhibition, “Journeys Drawn: Illustration from the Refugee Crisis,” in which the panel considered how illustration can help us connect with difficult and politically charged topics like the refugee crisis.
“Journeys Drawn” is the first UK exhibition to explore the refugee crisis through illustration. Illustrators are placed at an advantage over fine artists, as they are already used to working with stories and narratives, and most refugees’ stories are about moving, traveling and going on a journey through fleeing one place and arriving in another. The exhibition includes 40 multimedia works that range from being childlike picture-books to stark political cartoons. Some of them include a vast amount of written work, for example, Oliver Kugler’s work which incorporates the refugee’s own words and illustrations of their key objects and belongings in the same piece, whereas others convey emotion simply through imagery itself.
Asia Alfasi is a Libyan-British manga-influenced comic writer and artist who aims to represent the voice of the Muslim Arab. Her works synthesise Islamic, Lydian, British and Japanese influences. Manga is a suitable style to have been used in this instance, as it started when Japan was at its weakest, similar to the stories being depicted. A reason for manga becoming more popular during this time was because through this style artists were able to explore serious concepts and stories without the readers getting too close to reality, and they also had a chance to incorporate humour.
In this particular comic a young refugee returns to her destroyed childhood home. She is haunted by memories but finds hope when she sees children playing among the rubble. Asia felt it was important to create a story in which people are able to explore hope after discovering decay and distraction. I also found it interesting how she prefers to work in black and white because she believes colour can take away from the detail and emotion being displayed. Furthermore, her comics are created using pure imagery. There’s an instance in which one of the girls watches her village and people burn down, but the panel the readers see is that of a crying girl with the reflection of fire in her eyes. Asia’s illustrations are able to speak for themselves without any dialogue whatsoever, through exploring the power of visual imagery to narrate without the help of words.
The following video "North Star Fading - PositiveNegatives Org" I found to be the most moving of all. It uses a format called ‘zoom comic’ in which the picture is continually zooming in on the central image to open up the next scene. It was inspired by the testimonies of four Eritrean refugees who fled their homes to make the dangerous journey across Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya to Europe.
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