Embracing the unknown in community arts zone visual arts

ABSTRACT

Telling stories through photographs is certainly not a new or novel concept; however, thinking about image-making as a way of unknowing what we currently know is quite different from traditional approaches to photography. Built on an existing conceptual framework, writings on unknowing, we apply unknowing as a guiding method and heuristic to understand what a group of young people are trying to say and reimagine through the act of image-making. Research reported in this article from the Community Arts Zone visual arts project features a series of photograph projects across high school contexts where students created a Cindy Sherman-style conceptual photograph with an artist statement. The researchers engaged in a process of unknowing to interpret the photographs where they read through the visuals and engaged with modes in play and with observational fieldnotes about participants to draw out implications for such work for literacy teaching and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Image-making
• literacy
• unknowing
• identity performance
• visual discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use pseudonyms to protect the identities of teachers and students involved in the research study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 430-2013-1025].

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Rowsell

Jennifer Rowsell is Professor and Canada Research Chair at Brock University’s Faculty of Education. She is Co-Series Editor with Cynthia Lewis of the Routledge Expanding Literacies in Education Series and the Digital Literacy Editor for The Reading Teacher. Her latest books are The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies, co-edited with Kate Pahl and Generation Z: Zombies, Popular Culture, and Educating Youth, co-edited with Victoria Carrington, Esther Priyadharshini, and Rebecca Westrup.

Peter Vietgen

Peter Vietgen is an Associate Professor of Art Education in the Department of Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Brock University and is the current President of the Canadian Society for Education through Art, the national subject association for Art Education in Canada. Peter’s research interests include Teacher Education and the Arts, Museum/Gallery and School Partnerships, and Art Education and Equity Studies. A curator and artist himself, Peter has a keen interest in the art of photography.