*As a Comic artist, I had the privilege of lecturing at the Holon Institute of Design and Technology/HIT, an academic college in Holon, Tel Avi district, Israel to mark International Design Week 2025.
I was incredibly fortunate to work with Professor Tamier Shefer a lecturer at the institute who assisted me with my group and who helped communicate with my students in Hebrew when sometimes unclear in English but students communicated very well in English. Tamier is a lecturer at the institute and a cartoonist himself.
Together, I worked with a group of amazing creative, and open-minded group of students from the Visual Communication Design department in their 4th and last year at HIT. HIT happens to have a student population of more than 5,000 students.
Themed The Elephant in the Room, the workshop and lecture program focused on issues that tend to be left by the wayside, bypassed both intellectually and practically. Lecturers were invited from various countries such as Montenegro, Germany, and the UK
My skill was to be able to impart experience and knowledge and give insight as to how students are able to go about using their skills in art and animation and cartooning to express themselves and showcase individually, their own creative visuals and their take on The Elephant in the room.
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As a cartoonist illustrator, animator, and comic artist, I have had the opportunity to do cartoons and images that people have seen but would not talk about or editors refusing to them.
This was explained to the students using an effective mode of visual communication to enable facts to be registered permanently in people’s minds and which can be used in publications or on social media platforms.
One of the student’s visuals was the release of one of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas who was in captivity for over 11 years and was released together with some of the October 7 hostages.
His name, is Avera Mengistu, an Ethiopian-born Israeli man. I was intrigued as to why the student felt that this kidnapping needed to be talked about and highlighted. It was her concept Elephant in The Room.
Mengistu is featured here on EURWEB in FACT FINDER, my Black History illustrated facts feature. After a week’s work on the project, it was time for the students to do an animated presentation at the school’s auditorium, They did and the presentation was very well received.
TAYO as a guest at the Israeli Cartoon Museum
Invited guest lecturers took a break from HIT, to tour Old City Jerusalem with a Tour guide. That in itself was a sight to behold with religious history everywhere. More poignant, when the Easter season nears.
After the tour I was hosted by members of the Israeli Cartoonists Association at the Israeli Cartoon Museum in Holon. Little did I know, how much interest my OUR ROOTS series had generated until I was interviewed to discuss how I come up with each OUR ROOTS that I do.
Arranged by cartoonist Yuval Caspi, famous Israeli editorial cartoonist, Michel Kichka interviewed me the Museum talking through my PowerPoint presentation in front of Israeli cartoonists in attendance.
Long before I arrived in Israel, I was being expected, in anticipation of giving an insight into the feature, OUR ROOTS. I also had OUR ROOTS and my editorial cartoons exhibited nicely at the museum. I have been humbled by this awesome gesture and reception….”Excellence is the best deterrent to racism and sexism” Oprah Winfrey
TAYO Fatunla whose work has been featured on MSN.com via EURweb.com is an award-winning British-Nigerian Comic Artist, Editorial Cartoonist, Writer, and Illustrator and is an artist of the African diaspora. He is a graduate of the prestigious Kubert School, in New Jersey, US., and recipient of the 2018 ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrated OUR ROOTS creation and series – Famous people in Black History – He participated at UNESCO’s Cartooning In Africa forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Cartooning Global Forum in Paris, France and has held a virtual OUR ROOTS cartoon workshop for SMITHSONIAN- National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C. His Fela Kuti image is prominently featured in Burna Boy’s mega-Afrobeat hit song “Ye.” – TAYO is the illustrator behind the pictorial Black history walk map on a lectern that guides the walk in Camberwell, South East London, U.K. https://www.instagram.com/tfatunla123
RELATED NEWS ON EURWEB.COM: TAYO Fatunla’s Fact Finder – Black History Timeline for Educational Purposes
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