Tying Up Loose Ends: The Fabric of Panel Borders in Kate Evans' Threads

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In her graphic novel Threads: From the Refugee Crisis (2017), Kate Evans uses the symbolism and leitmotif of threads to recount her experience volunteering in the Calais Jungle, Europe's largest refugee encampment, which operated from January 2015 to October 2016. However, with the incorporation of lace imagery into the front matter and formal characteristics of the comics form, the threads of Threads are more than simply an analogy for the intertwining factors and complex relationships that emerged in Calais. With every panel border constructed by a lace frame, lacework is also a fundamental structuring principle in Evans' text that engages with the region's history of lacemaking and refugee experience simultaneously. This essay unravels some of the many threads of Threads to understand Evans' mobilization of Calais' most essential industry, evaluating the role of lace in Threads' overarching representation of the refugee experience and a larger critique of the global refugee experience.