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Visual Culture
The visual representation of refugees and migrants generally reflects through the visual media which acts as an important role to the attention of the public. This assists in helping to understand the current situation about the refugee and migrants crisis.
Visuals in Newspapers
They are not just illustrations, but can have a determining influence in what people should value. For instance, the front page of the British national newspapers feature the shocking image of the three-year-old Syrian boy ,face-down on the beach in Turkey. With this photo in play, David Cameron rethinks his stance on the UK intakes of refugees. Therefore, photojournalism employs the photographic storytelling to document life in which people visually realize the refugee crisis in the society.
Screenshot from the Northern Echo
Visuals in movies
This image is a scene from The Children of Men, a science fiction film that is directed by Alfonso Cuaron. The film is about women being infertile and no children having been born for the last 18 years. Particularly, in The Children of Men, most of the world’s societies have collapsed and in Britain, all foreigners have been declared illegal immigrants and rounded up by Britain military forces to be deported. As a result, this screenshot in the movie is that the majority of people act as the domestic animals in the cages, which reflects the Syrian crisis.
FIRE AT SEA
Children of Men
The Golden Dream
In this video, the Golden Dream, it briefly describes the long journey of teenage migrants from the slum of Guatemala to the US in search of a better life. They captured not only the difficult process of sneaking into the US, but also their encounter with senses of danger and hopelessness. In addition, the shocking and heart-breaking scenes of their many tribulations visually indicate the reality of a refugee’s experiences, which is a symbol of representation to the refugee crisis. For my research, the power of visual media is a good way to inspire people, and aids the refugee crisis by broadcasting the visuals to the world.
This movie is an Italian documentary directed by Gianfranco Rosi. It depicts the humanitarian disaster as it impacts the small Italian island of Lampedusa. Within Rosi’s camera, he watches citizens in a nationality-deprived country with a non-biased eye, claiming that each party in the crisis has their own rituals which preserve their sense of self.
In other words, Rosi contrasts the lives of the desperate thousands landing on the shores of a Sicilian island with the everyday existence of the locals.
Also, the poster shows a tiny refugee boat drifting at sea, with a banner depicting that, “more than 17,000 people were reported to have died, trying to cross the Mediterranean in the last 15 years.” This acts as a sign of warning to all people, revealing the truth of the European refugee crisis.
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