I gave this presentation as part of a PechuKucha-style colloquy held with colleagues at the Australian Digital Futures Institute on Wed 17th July, 2013. I aimed to give a few hints as to why I began using visual studies method, and some approaches. There is no voice over, so I have added some explanatory thought bubbles.

1. Critical seeinghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/coincoyote/

2. Contradictions:
45,000 more women killed than men
in Boxing Day tsunami, 2004
I first became interested
In visual studies when I
encountered
contradictions between
images of the Boxing
Day Tsunami in 2004
and women’s lived
experiences.

3. Contradictions: Women aren’t
strong enough to be fire fighters
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adjourned/
I also encountered
contradictions between
the hard physical labour
of women in the
majority world and
negative attitudes
towards the capabilities
of female firefighters

4. We make the road by walking
We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change by Myles Horton, Paulo Freire 1990
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26609376@N00/sets/72157594290816252/show/
This presentation
reflects a conceptual
space that photographs
construct meaning,
through representation;
rather than capture
“reality”.

5. And by seeing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lecercle/
Photographs provide an
opportunity to explore
what is shown , how
and by whom? What is
absent and why?

6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaseanton/
Through photo essays
The following slides
provide an overview of
different approaches to
visual studies:

7. Through creative
collection and curation
http://www.postsecret.com/

8. http://www.flickr.com/photos/amyflemingphotography/
Through postcards of
meaning

9. Through visual artefacts
www.thewhitecardgame.com.au
Visual artefacts such as
this enable a researcher
to explore
representations of
gender, race and
sexuality in virtual
spaces used to educate
others

10. Through visual images
Curating and analysing
Google images provides
insight into how lived
experience (in this case
female firefighters) are
represented at a
moment in time

11. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cromonna/
Through photo-elicitation
in its many forms

12. Through
personalized &
cultural maps
An alternative to the
linear verbal interview –
create maps, drawings,
doodles, sand lines, real
mud maps….

13. Through data
visualisation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulcookie/
Data visualisation has
become very popular,
but they are themselves
representations of data
– that is itself often
“objective” and
representational.. They
are worthy of critical
analysis, as well as use.

14. http://www.flickr.com/photos/springm/
Through critical
content analysis
Visual data provides a
mechanism for critical
analysis – but this analysis
also needs to be applied to
images in order to
interrogate representation
. What is seen and not
seen, and by whom, shapes
our way of seeing and
making ‘the road”

15. http://www.flickr.com/photos/springm/
Through collaborative
mapping…
“Seeing” visually can be
a process of crowd
sourcing and
collaboration

16. And collaborative timelines

17. And new media storytelling

18. Visual studies provides one way of
encountering and interrogating
beyond words by exploring the
contradictions that can exist
between words and images.
Analysis of visual representations
can be used as a basis for problem
solving, by expanding the social
imagination.

19. To imagine a