Description
This paper examines the afterlife of the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian child whose body washed ashore in 2015, as a case study in the exhaustion of the iconic image. Initially framed as a catalyst for moral clarity and political response, the image appeared to crystallise public affect and prompt shifts in migration policy, particularly in Germany. Yet within weeks, its meaning fragmented under conditions of algorithmic circulation, media saturation, and securitised reframing.
Drawing on affect theory and psychoanalysis, the paper conceptualises this shift as a form of non-closure - an oscillation between iconic desire and epistemic instability. The Kurdi image did not stabilise meaning but exposed its volatility, triggering what Berlant (2011) calls cruel optimism: a structure of attachment to images that promise moral repair while delivering political fatigue.
The paper draws on media analysis, policy discourse, and scholarly commentary to show how the body-in-suffering becomes a site of overexposure rather than transformation. In doing so, it reframes iconicity not as a stabilising force but as a residual fantasy operating under liquid conditions of witnessing.
