How to Illustrate the Unillustrable
Home and Body as Battlefields on October 7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64166/b64jfg39Abstract
This article examines illustrations created in response to the atrocities ofOctober 7 as an immediate visual reflection on the events. These works seek toconvey the magnitude of the disaster that unfolded on that Saturday, grapplingwith the challenge of representing extreme violence and trauma. The articleanalyzes works by six Israeli illustrators—Or Yogev, Ze’ev Engelmayer,Or Livneh, Tal Shetach, Keren Shpilsher, and Michel Kichka (in the orderof their appearance in the article). Drawing on local and international newscoverage, survivor testimonies, and videos released by Hamas terrorists, theseillustrations were disseminated via the artists’ Instagram accounts and rapidlywent viral.
Based on an analysis of a broad corpus of images, the article identifies twocentral, spatially oriented and intertwined themes: ״home ״ and ״body, ״understood as parallel spaces—mental, social, symbolic, and national.The study further examines the illustrative strategies employed by theartists, including intertextuality, which forges connections to documentaryphotography and canonical works of Israeli and Western art, and processes offigural transformation, through which individuals who had been anonymousprior to that day are rendered as symbols of human suffering and universal evil.The visual analysis draws on theoretical frameworks from psychoanalysis,gender studies, and visual culture.
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