Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Escaping Wars and Waves
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1970
WEBSITE: http://www.olivierkugler.com/
CITY: London
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: German
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2018182887
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2018182887
HEADING: Kugler, Olivier
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008 180410n| azannaabn |n aaa
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035 __ |a (DNLM)1779711
040 __ |a DNLM |b eng |e rda |c DNLM
100 1_ |a Kugler, Olivier
370 __ |a Germany |e London (England) |2 naf
670 __ |a Escaping war and waves, 2018: |b ECIP title page (Olivier Kugler) data view (London-based editorial illustrator and visual journalist)
670 __ |a Eye Magazine, Feature, Olivier Kugler: bearing witness web site, Apr. 6, 2018 |b (contemporary face of reportage illustration; grew up in Germany, but settled in London in 2003) |u http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/olivier-kugler-bearing-witness
PERSONAL
Born 1970, in Stuttgart, Germany.
EDUCATION:School of Visual Arts, New York, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, visual journalist, and illustrator. Reportage illustrator.
MIILITARY:Served in German Navy.
AWARDS:AOI Gold Award, 2004 and 2008; Victoria & Albert Museum Illustration Award, 2011; World Illustration Award, 2015.
WRITINGS
Contributor of illustrations to periodicals, including London Guardian, Harper’s, Port, and Le Monde Diplomatique.
SIDELIGHTS
Olivier Kugler is a writer and journalist based in London, England. He is a reportage illustrator, a journalist who uses artwork to tell a story much the same way a photojournalist uses photographs. His journalistic artwork has appeared in major newspapers and magazines, including the London Guardian and Harper’s. His awards include a Victoria & Albert Museum Illustration Award and a World Illustration Award.
Kugler finds a showcase for his reportage illustrations in his book Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees. The book is a “stunning collection of Olivier Kugler’s compelling series of evocative drawings documenting the experiences of Syrian refugees he met in Iraqi Kurdistan, Greece, France, Germany, Switzerland and England,” commented John Freeman on the website Down the Tubes.
In this book, Kugler reports on multiple interviews he conducted with refugees, the majority of whom came from Syria. He talks to refugees at multiple stages of their journey, including in refugee camps, in encampments in Greece, and in a small German village. The interview subjects talk about their experiences, including the circumstances that drove them to flee their country to seek safety and asylum elsewhere. Kugler illustrates stories of violence and intimidation inflicted on refugees even after they left their homeland. They consider the inexplicable hatred they experienced solely by the fact that they were outsiders. They also describe the difficulties they experienced dealing with the bureaucracies in the countries where they settled after leaving their homes. Loneliness, fear, homesickness, isolation, and other strong, bitter emotions are common among the refugees featured in the book.
Joe Gordon, in a review of Escaping Wars and Waves on Down the Tubes, stated, “This is not an easy read, it’s emotionally hard-going, but very worth making that effort; it’s a much-needed riposte to the demonizing and hatred we see poured at some refugees, and a reminder of that old saying, there but for the grace of God go I.” Gordon continued: “How swiftly could everything we think is normal be destroyed just as it was for these people? Home, work, school, going to a restaurant, the movies, day out with the kids? Suddenly all gone. And how desperate would we be, how much would we rely on our fellow humans to show kindness if it were us in such a situation?”
All the stories in the book “are about displacement, and Kugler’s ability to make each feel painfully unique gives this chronicle its immense power,” commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 14, 2018, review of Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees, p. 42.
ONLINE
Down the Tubes, https://downthetubes.net/ (May 20, 2018), John Freeman, “Escaping Wars and Waves, Olivier Kuglers Powerful Account of the Syrian Refugee Crisis, to Be Published by Myriad Editions”; (September 20, 2018), Joe Gordon, review of Escaping Wars and Waves.
Olivier Kugler website, http://www.olivierkugler.com (November 12, 2018).
Pennsylvania State University Press website, http://www.psupress.org/ (October 24, 2018), biography of Olivier Kugler.
Olivier Kugler is a reportage illustrator based in London and has won many awards, including a Victoria & Albert Museum Illustration Award in 2011 and a World Illustration Award in 2015. His reportage drawings have appeared in The Guardian, Harper’s, Le Monde diplomatique, Port, XXI, and other publications.
ESCAPING WARS AND WAVES, OLIVIER KUGLER’S POWERFUL ACCOUNT OF THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS, TO BE PUBLISHED BY MYRIAD EDITIONS
Posted on May 20, 2018 by John Freeman
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
Myriad Editions will publish Escaping War and Waves by award-winning reportage graphic artist Oliver Kugler soon, and if you’re in any way curious about the plight of refugees in the 21st century, you should buy this book.
Escaping War and Waves is a stunning collection of Olivier Kugler‘s compelling series of evocative drawings documenting the experiences of Syrian refugees he met in Iraqi Kurdistan, Greece, France, Germany, Switzerland and England, mostly on assignment for Médecins Sans Frontières.
Escaping Wars and Waves - art by Olivier Kugler
Oliver is an incredible, thoughtful and talented artist who I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing at a previous Lakes International Comic Art Festival. I’m in awe of his work and dedication, to be frank – especially given the stories he’s telling through his work, which can at times be heart breaking – but also, life affirming.
Escaping Wars and Waves - art by Olivier Kugler
Based on many interviews, and hundreds of reference photos, Oliver’s beautifully observed drawings of his interviewees bring to life their location – a room, a camp, on the road. His reporting of their stories is peppered with snatches of conversation and images of the objects that have become such a significant part of their lives.
He’s been commissioned by Médecins Sans Frontières and published in The Guardian, Port, Le Monde Diplomatique and many other publications. A portfolio, ‘Waiting State’, published in Harpers, portraying Syrians Kugler met in Iraqi Kurdistan, was the overall winner of the Association of Illustrators World Illustration Awards in 2015.
Oliver’s many awards also include overall winner of both the V&A Illustration Awards in 2011 and the AOI Gold Award in 2004 and 2008.
Drawings from Escaping Wars and Waves will be exhibited at The Print House Gallery, Hackney during Refugee Week (18th – 24th June 2018), and if you’re in London do try and get to see this. They’re stunning, in my view.
• Escaping War and Waves will be published on 5th July 2018 by Myriad Editions in partnership with Penn State University Press in North America. Work from the project will be exhibited at The Print House Gallery, 18 Ashwin St, Hackney, London E8 3DL during Refugee Week (18-24 June 2018)
Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters
with Syrian Refugees
Publishers Weekly.
265.20 (May 14, 2018): p42+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees
Olivier Kugler. Penn State Univ., $24.95 (88p) ISBN 978-0-271-08224-0
A kaleidoscopic odyssey for the era of displaced persons and disintegrating nations, this collection of
dispatches from the Syrian refugee community is a fine example of humanistic journalism. Comics
journalist Kugler interviews refugees, mostly from Syria, along the many stages of their diaspora, from the
Domiz refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan to the Greek island of Kos; the so-called "Jungle Camp" in Calais,
France; and Simmozheim, a small village in Germany where the author grew up. The recollections range
from the seemingly random violence that drove refugees out of their country ("I don't know why they shot
at our house") to the tribulations caused by their outsider status ("Fascists appeared.... They jumped out of
cars and ran towards us") and bureaucracy-induced isolation ("In our culture, we are afraid of authorities").
The pages are dense and jumbled, portraits surrounded by overlapping tangles of sketches--some brightly
spot-colored and others penciled--and digressive text, frequently ordered with directional arrows. This could
prove a challenge for some readers, but the book's structure also serves as a fitting analogy for the
uncertainty and disorder of the lives of its subjects. All of these stories are about displacement, and Kugler's
ability to make each feel painfully unique gives this chronicle its immense power. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees." Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2018, p. 42+.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387431/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f331bcb4. Accessed 29 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A539387431
IN REVIEW: ESCAPING WARS AND WAVES: ENCOUNTERS WITH SYRIAN REFUGEES
Posted on September 20, 2018 by Joe Gordon
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
By Olivier Kugler
Publisher: Myriad Editions / New Internationalist
“The children are nervous… When they hear any noise, even if you only knock at the door, they can get very afraid.”
The world is currently experiencing its one of its worst refugee problems since the Second World War, with masses of people being displaced through war, famine, economic poverty and more. You’d hope by this point, in the 21st century, humankind would have learned and moved on from this sort of wretchedness, but no. And apart from the physical and practical problems of countries coping with a mass influx of often desperate refugees, there are those who shamelessly use such an awful situation to whip up xenophobic hatred, turned to their own cynical purposes to garner political and popular support. German creator Kugler does something which is desperately needed, he puts a very human, very personal face onto some of those refugees.
We see in the news regular statistics – this many drowned in a rickety boat crossing to Europe, this many in camps, this many asking for asylum in countries that are worried about the impact of so many so quickly, even in nations who have traditionally been open and inviting. Kugler does not pretend to have answers to these enormous practical and ethical problems, what he does here is give us people, not statistics, not some politician’s ideologically driven rhetoric. People. Men, women, kids, families. People just like us, like our friends, our families, our neighbours, our communities.
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
The images we see from the news, even by the most well-intentioned journalists, often gives a distorted view. We see people grubbing in the mud of a camp like the infamous Jungle in Calais, or an overflowing city of tents in Kurdistan, and those images can give us the wrong impression, make us judgemental in the same we it is too easy to be when seeing someone begging or sleeping rough on our own city streets. We don’t know the stories behind those images, behind those people, what they have endured, are still enduring. Kugler gives us that, and does his level best to do so without interjecting himself – there is a very clear desire by the author to make sure that as much as possible he presents these people in their own words.
Many of these refugees are well-educated folk from a decent background, college-educated with degrees, a nice family, pretty home (one speaks movingly of missing their little vegetable garden by their home, where they grew oranges and lemons right by the house, home now gone, even the trees that grew for generations of her family ripped up by the uncaring war). There are teachers here, lawyers, computer specialists, nurse, doctors, even psychologists like Suzan who helps MSF (Medecins Sans Frontiers, the same charitable organisation many of you will remember Guy Delisle’s wife working for in his comics travelogues).
Kugler goes to various locations to talk first hand to people who have had to flee Syria, some because the war came literally to their doorstep (if they were lucky they all escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs, if they were unlucky they escaped after shells had killed some of their family in front of them), taking us from Kurdistan to the Greek island of Kos, to the “Jungle” camp in Calais, to Britain and Germany where some of the refugees have been allowed to settle, the most fortunate reunited with other family members already there. He takes us from those struggling in overflowing tented camps where charities and local authorities are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, to those trying to make a new life for themselves in Europe.
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
It’s often heartbreaking, especially hearing from the children. Not for the first time I was reminded of the late, great Spike Milligan’s war memoirs, from the WWII Italian campaign when they came across a village where a child had become a casualty of the fighting; “the adult world should forever hang its head in shame at what is has done to children” commented Spike, and he wasn’t wrong. But while much of this is, as you might imagine, very upsetting, this is balanced with that quality we all need, especially these days: hope. We see the fortunate make new homes for themselves; they miss their old hometown, their country, but they are relieved to be in a place that is safe, where their children can go to school and thrive.
Several times the kids briefly forget the traumas their young eyes have seen and grow excited like any other child, telling Kugler what they want to be when they grow up and leave school (“a nurse!” “an engineer!!”). The fact they can overcome those traumas and think about a future again, to play and dream of being a doctor or an engineer when they are older, is a wonderful thing to see in those children. In an especially touching scene Kugler visits some in Germany – the kids of the family now go to his old school in his hometown.
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
Escaping War and Waves by Olivier Kugler
Rather than a series of sequential panels, Kugler opts more for (mostly) coloured sketches taking up an entire page, or sometimes running across two pages, with text telling the person’s own story, rather than speech bubbles. Thoughtfully these chunks of text running around the art are numbered to make it easier to follow around the art layout. The sketches themselves tend to focus on characters central in the image, they are depicted with the most detail, the colouring, and most importantly, the expressions, coming through clearly, while around the periphery details and people there are sketchier, not as detailed, perhaps not even coloured in.
It felt as if the artist was using this approach to hint that for every couple of people he talked to, centre on the stage of the page, there were so many others around the edge; he can’t talk to them all but he can infer to the reader that they are there and the too matter. There are small details added in like a little arrow pointing to something small in the background and text explaining “chocolate bar”, “plastic flowers”. It all serves to normalise these unusual scenes, the bric-a-brac of everyday life scattered around just like it would be anywhere.
There is also a remarkable amount of hospitality and welcome shown here by many refugees. As Kugler explains not everyone wants to be drawn or photographed, understandably given their circumstances (many still have family back in war-torn Syria and fear anything they say could cause trouble for family still there). But many, even those in the refugee camps with so little to their name, still do their best to offer warm hospitality when he visits. One man who had managed to make himself a wee business while stuck in the camps, running a small stall selling coffee, drinks and other snacks sees him standing in the cold and mud waiting on his interpreter to arrive, and offers him hot, sweet coffee, refusing payment. Others, in tents or in homes in Birmingham or Simmozheim, Kugler’s home village in Germany, welcome him into their homes, be they tents in a camp or actual homes in the country managed to get asylum in.
Even for those settled in Europe the scars are horribly visible, both physical (one man shows his bullet wounds), others mental (children still scared when they hear a helicopter passing overhead, or the sudden roar of a train going over a bridge as they walk under it. Again I was reminded of Milligan, how his nerves shattered by the war, he would find himself in tears of sudden fear just from the sudden sound of a car exhaust backfiring). God knows what some of them have been through – despite many opening up to Kugler, it’s obvious this is barely scratching the tip of the iceberg. We all know how bad a place we can be in when dealing with emotional upsets – illness, losing a loved one – and how emotionally hard it is to cope, and that is us with our home, rest of our family and friends around us. Imagine having those kinds of traumas and losing your home, the town you lived in destroyed, having to flee your own land and throw yourself out hoping desperately for help.
That’s what Kugler does so well here, he enables us to see these people not as a news story, not as statistics, not as demonised figures, but to show us people, people we can see ourselves in, we can empathise with. And from empathy comes compassion and more understanding, and god knows our world desperately needs those right now.
This is not an easy read, it’s emotionally hard-going, but very worth making that effort; it’s a much-needed riposte to the demonising and hatred we see poured at some refugees, and a reminder of that old saying, there but for the grace of God go I. How swiftly could everything we think is normal be destroyed just as it was for these people? Home, work, school, going to a restaurant, the movies, day out with the kids? Suddenly all gone.
And how desperate would we be, how much would we rely on our fellow humans to show kindness if it were us in such a situation?
No, this is not an easy read, but it is, I would say, a very important read.
Joe Gordon