Travelling in a globalised world as an existential experience: the graphic novel in the water

Rachel Weissbrod, Ayelet Kohn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper sets to show how a multimodal depiction of a trip to a foreign country is used to spin an existential fable adapted to our times. Our case study is the graphic novel In the Water (Ba-Mayim in Hebrew) by the Israeli poet Tehila Hakimi and the illustrator Liron Cohen, published in 2016. The novel turns upside down our expectations from such a trip by manipulating the verbal, visual and spatial dimensions of the experience. The hotel rather than the new place is at the centre, it is situated in Shanghai but could be located anywhere, and the endless wandering between its restaurants, corridors and elevators leads to the conclusion that it is actually a journey into the self, which is both personal and representative of the experience of living in today’s globalised and alienated world.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)835-850
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Graphic Novels and Comics
Volume13
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

The graphic novel under consideration is a product of the collaboration between the Israeli poet Tehila Hakimi and the illustrator Liron Cohen. Before its publication, Hakimi – a mechanical engineer – was known in Israeli literary circles as a poet and a Mizrahi activist. Mizrahi refers to Israeli Jews whose families emigrated from the Middle East and North Africa. In her poetry, Hakimi incorporated social criticism, and the discrimination of Mizrahi Jews was one of her main targets. In contrast, In the Water is universally oriented and seems to be more connected to her work as an engineer, which involves travelling abroad. The link between the two bodies of work is her sense of alienation as a Mizrahi woman, and as a sole woman in a world dominated by men. Cohen, who collaborated with Hakimi in creating the graphic novel, is an artist, whose works – which were presented in exhibitions in Israel and abroad – include painting, sculpture, illustrations, video art and animation. Cohen and Hakimi were familiar with each other’s work before starting to work on In the Water, and Cohen had illustrated the cover of Hakimi’s poetry collection. In creating In the Water, however, they collaborated for the first time in producing a graphic novel, wishing to transcend the limits of their art and let something new emerge from the encounter between words and images. They created it almost simultaneously – Hakimi sent Cohen textual segments, and received them back with illustrations which, in their turn, inspired her writing (Saar ). Like other Israeli artists, and given the still rather marginal status of graphic novels in Israeli culture, no publisher was involved. They published the graphic novel independently with the support of Israeli funds – Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts and The Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts. We are grateful to Tehila Hakimi and Liron Cohen for their permission to use illustrations and quotes from the graphic novel in this article.

FundersFunder number
Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts
Tehila Hakimi and Liron Cohen
Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts

    Keywords

    • Graphic novel
    • existentialism
    • globalisation
    • hotel
    • journey
    • multimodality

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