Abstract
Hope is something we all grasp for - perhaps cling to, at one time or another. From a literary perspective, Lakoff and colleagues metaphorically defined hope as something one may possess by finding strength through supporting objects, as future orientation through visioning a desired future, and hope as light providing strength. When war broke in Ukraine in February 2022, a group of individuals began collecting and archiving online, drawings created by Ukrainian children in response to the prompt Mom I see war. Over 15,000 drawings were collected and archived providing a public dataset and visual barometer of children’s perspectives of wartime. The drawing data also provided an opportunity to test Lakoff’s textual metaphor framework as useful for better understanding the construction of visual metaphors through drawing. Qualitative analysis surfaced visual motifs drawn by the children that relate to “hope as a possession” including drawings that depicted children holding teddy bears or other stuffed toys, and children at a window with a teddy bear propped on the ledge nearby. “Hope as future orientation” emerged through dark and gray depictions of devastation and war on one side of the picture plane that changed to a happier scenario that included flowers, children and their pets playing, all drawn in bright colours, on the other half. The findings highlight children’s capacity to construct visual metaphors of hope and imagine a brighter future during a traumatic time. The use of visual metaphors also provides opportunities for developing shared understandings of the human experience beyond words.
Presenters
Tracey BowenProfessor, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information & Technology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Visual metaphor, Hope, Children's Drawings, Wartime images
