‘Plight’

Pronunciation:/plʌɪt/nouna dangerous, difficult, or otherwise unfortunate situation:

‘ we must direct our efforts towards relieving the plight of

children living in poverty.’

Unlike the journalist…

…the illustrator stands outside un-noticed, the illustrator empathises and sits next to you holding your hand without

you realising… the illustrator whispers softly doesn’t scream but makes a more penetrating noise. The illustrator speaks

more clearly, using voices which can be understood, the illustrator has a stance, but can move in and around that

stand point, gaining perspective, understanding. The illustrator lends an eye to the unseen, or the blind or blotted

out…

unlike photography…

Which one can misunderstand or become numb to, which one encounters constantly and thus can easily ignore…

The illustrator can take another approach…

You might say it’s no country for old men. Russia, that is. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russians have been increasingly ravaged by disease and death. And one of the main reasons is the nation’s favorite drink. There’s so much vodka going down the throats of so many Russians, life expectancy for men has fallen to just 60 years old – about the same as in Myanmar and Haiti.

(http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/alcoholism-a-national-disaster-in-russia/)

The illustrator can tell a story…

In contrast to statistics we go inside have a cup of tea and ask questions…

Tsunami

So the story we are telling helps more people understand and possibly wish to

help or a least become informed…

Africa Conference

Politics

Metaphor

Allegory

* The plight, or sense of plight that the illustrator can convey, as storyteller and image maker is powerful, it can have a

moral stance, or empathetic, or both; most importantly the need is to connect in a

human way to the needs or stories of others and in that be able to recognise ourselves.

In your last module, Narrative and Drawing methodologies, your focus was visual storytelling, storytelling for

imaginative purposes. In ‘Influence’ you are asked to explore the

notions of storytelling, the boundaries and the possibilities of

it, to discover ways in which illustration can conveyinformation that is often difficult, unpleasant, dull, dreary, or

ordinarily journalistic, i.e. written about or photographed. The aim is to carve new niches for ‘Documentary

Illustration’ inProject 1.

Through ‘Plight’ explore and utilisethese possibilities.

‘The eye of a human being is a microscope which makes the world seem bigger than it

really is.’

Kahlil Gibran