Academic essays are usually only read through a few times, by students and professors and then stored away. However, the Graphic Design Department of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens went out of its way to help students create valuable essays as part of a script illustration course, that will be play a significant role in the lives of several people.
Last September, instead of assigning a typical essay, the school’s professors asked students to create Storyboards, illustrated scripts on the refugee issue. Their scripts would later be turned into short films. Unlike the one-dimensional view of the issue that is presented daily through the media, displaying only the refugees’ risky journey, the students had the chance to highlight various issues, concerning the crisis.
Some of the students had only heard about the refugee issue through the media and had not researched it by themselves. The essay gave them the chance to find out more about the struggles of people living in the Middle East and the reasons they are fleeing their countries. Some students broke when they faced the horrific images and decided not to do the essay. However, most of them insisted on moving forward with the project so they could show how the war and conflict had changed the lives of millions of people.
Through their work, the students highlighted important issues such as the lack of solidarity shown by many European countries. They used imaginative symbolism to achieve their goal, such as the illustration of a refugee tsunami that reaches the borders set up by western European states.
According to associate professor Eleni Mouri and lecturer Spyros Siakas the aim of the project had multiple levels. “We are part of the faculty of applied arts and it is very important for the children to come in contact with the real world and work on a real project. Furthermore, we seek to turn our students into aware citizens, while we also aim to create something that will be useful to our country. We are a public institution and what we do is designed to serve a variety of bodies interested in further development.”
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