ILLUSTRATING DISSENT: VISUAL NARRATIVE OF AN EVENTFUL PROTEST BASED ON THE GEZİ PROTESTS

Date

2023-9-8

Author

Sarıkaya Eren, Selen

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The 2013 Gezi Protests is one of the most significant protests in the recent history of Turkey, with particularly rich visual and performative aspects, including illustrations. Despite their significance in reflecting the protesters' profile, motivations, and experiences, the illustrations they created and shared are understudied. This thesis analyzes the visual dimension of the Gezi Protests, with a specific focus on how the dynamics of the Gezi Protests were visualized in these illustrations. Employing an innovative methodology called three-step visual analysis and contextualization, the thesis investigates whether any visual narrative emerged. While the illustrations are analyzed through a visual content analysis based on political iconography, the findings are further contextualized through in-depth interviews with illustrators, survey reports, and literature review. There are three major findings. Firstly, the visual narrative of Gezi illustrations proposes a new protestor iconography that suggests the negotiation between an individualistic position with libertarian values and the newly experienced collective solidarity of inexperienced protestors dealing with emotionally and cognitively shocking police violence. Secondly, the content of the illustrations, including this new iconography and the creation process of the illustrations themselves, highly reflect the eventful characteristics of the Gezi Protests thanks to the illustration’s capacity to communicate ideas and emotions visually. Lastly, the illustrations increase the visibility of tragic moments and important figures, alter their meanings, and intensify their emotional and cognitive impact on the audience.

Subject Keywords

Illustration studies, social movements, visual analysis, eventful protest, narrative

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/105318

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis