As a media form, animation has the unique ability to render immaterial realities and unfamiliar experiences visually in a manner inaccessible to live-action cinema. In this way, animation can represent the unrepresentable, creating a rare opportunity for either the disruption of hegemonic discourses, such as through the visualisation of silenced perspectives, or a repackaged reiteration of them. Animation can provide a vehicle for graphic political criticism, augmenting the way things are represented through artistic means: such as by exaggerating certain characteristic features of a political class or actor through cartoon aesthetics. A prime example of this can be found within the Who is a Refugee? animation featured on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) YouTube channel, which represents the journey of an unnamed family from an unspecified nation as they transition into refugee status.
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