Crossings [World Illustration Awards Exhibition, Professional Exploration Category]

Jury selected Illustration for the World Illustration Awards 2021, Long listed in the Professional Exploration Category.An image which explores the child refugee crisis. Over half of the world's refugees are children, many of them are forced into living lives separated from their families and homes.Created as part of my early doctoral research, this image presents a practical experiment in response to wordless comics theory, using multiple panels and framing devices in a critical way. The figure in the lower-left corner suggests an embodied, personal viewpoint. Her narrative unfolds through fragmented, non‑sequitur images that the viewer connects mostly from bottom to top. The layered panel layout creates a sense of a journey that seems to conclude in a fantasy‑like dwelling in the upper-right corner. Its placement, especially in relation to the character’s position on the pictorial plane, introduces metaphorical meaning through spatial relationships.Johnson, R. (2021) Crossings [Exhibit]. World Illustration Awards 2021, Professional Exploration Category. Available at: https://worldillustrationawards.com/projects/richard-johnson-crossings. (Accessed: January 2026).© Richard Johnson