Visual Storytelling

Graphic Narratives

Graphic novels can be a very advantageous format when survivors do not want to be visibly associated/personally identifiable in a narrative, especially involving genocide-related research. When working with artists and creators, one’s appearance, physical/geographic setting, and other personal details of real-life, can be masked and changed. As an art-form, it can be powerful in a more effective, nuanced way, evoking emotion through color, style, as well as the contrast between the visual and the deep, heavy content. 

Graphic novels can also be very useful as a pedagogical tool, and when educating youth, where violence can be portrayed without becoming too sensationalist or too explicit. When created thoughtfully, the audience may be more receptive to learning and sitting with horrific events that might seem far removed from the everyday, and the challenges that these survivor stories might pose to common perceptions of certain histories. This more casual and accessible approach to storytelling may also help readers from more privileged backgrounds recognize their own role in perpetuating violence, and the process of transitional justice that the survivors might be calling for. 

Theatre

Theatre is fundamentally an act of roleplay; when the subject is based in nonfiction, it’s also a place of witnessing that can create distance from that history by embodying a character. Christina Cook and George Belliveau emphasize that theatre-based practices can allow for an ethical, care-centered approach in sharing traumatic stories. Theatre is also a relatively mobile form of research-creation as it can occupy different kinds of spaces and locations – in a traditional theatre, in an outdoor public space, in a classroom, etc. It also necessarily calls for an audience of some kind who witness the stories on stage, an audience that can also be curated, if necessary. In the case of Contact! Unload, veteran actors invited other veterans, friends, and family to come see the final production performed on stage. Cook describes this kind of collective witnessing as a “together space” rather than “us vs. them.”

Theatre-based research is a change-making process that is also co-creative, a process that Christina Cook refers to as “magical.” In the case of Contact! Unload, veterans acted as peer mentors for other veterans participating in the process. Actors were also not described as “acting” but rather as “performing stories of self.” Many of the veterans in the audience, those who came to see the performance, stayed after the show to speak with performers. The performer veterans then became advocates because they had gone through their own healing process through the act of performing their own stories. This effect resulted in increased referrals for support through a charity called The Veterans Transition Network, which helps veterans through a healing process as they transition back into civilian life.