visual pedagogies – visual research – workshops & training
I would like to share a couple of thoughts about my teaching philosophy. These reflections were in fact a part of the outcome of the university pedagogy programme TACE – Teaching Academic Content through English, in which I took part from March 2012 to March 2013 at the University of Jyväskylä.
To read more about my teaching philosophy go HERE
On 5th of December 2012 the Kone Foundation (Koneen Säätiö) has announced the grant decision for the Researcher Grants in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Environmental Research, and Artistic Research.
I have received a one-year personal grant for my dissertation work: “Modelling press photography analysis: Learning through pictures”. This means that the year 2013 I could fully dedicate to the research work, thanks to the Kone Foundation.
Abstract of my dissertation could be found on the Foundation website HERE
And some information about the Kone Foundation:
Kone Foundation is an independent and unaffiliated organization, the aim of which is to promote Finnish academic research, arts and culture. From a modest start in the early years, Kone Foundation began to award grants for academic research, with a specific focus on the humanities, the social sciences and environmental sciences.
(source: http://www.koneensaatio.fi/en/information)
Together with three other researchers in visual studies:
Jenni Mäenpää, Researcher and PhD student, Tampere Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication – COMET, University of Tampere;
Mari Pienimäki, Licentiate, PhD student, Research Center for Contemporary Culture, University of Jyväskylä;
Nanna Särkkä, Project researcher and PhD student at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture;
I designed a project “Visuality in Journalism: Collaborative Perspective”. Project has a form of a network or a support group for PhD students in visual communication. It received a start-up grant from the Faculty of Humanities, University of Jyväskylä.
Here is a basic description of the main idea of the project:
Contemporary press is getting more and more visual; a large part of meanings is conveyed in other ways than with text. However, far too little attention has been paid to the visual. There is also far too little understanding of how the visuality works. Journalism research as well as a curriculum in journalism is still focusing mainly on text, marginalizing an understanding of images, photographs, graphics and layout. Therefore, there is a need for a cross-disciplinary approach to visuality in journalism.
The aim of this project is to stimulate discussion on different elements of visual communication in print media, i.e. layout, photojournalism, press photography, genre, context, and to confront divers research interests and approaches to visuality in journalism. As an outcome, project members plan to write one or two scientific articles for the peer-reviewed journals.
29-31 of August 2012, in cooperation with FINCOM 2012 Conference, I organized a photography exhibition at the University of Jyväskylä.
Photographs presented at the exhibition were a part of students’ final assignment submitted for the course “Visual Literacy: Press Photography as a Medium”, which took place in January – March 2012 in the Department of Communication, University of Jyväskylä. Students were asked to take either single press photographs or photograph stories on the following topic: “Communicating the Future – Future of Communication”, which was also the theme of FINCOM 2012 Conference. Among authors of exhibited photographs were students from Finland, Spain, Canada, Belgium, Iran, Netherlands and Germany.
Exhibition presented single press photographs and press photograph stories. Each photograph or photograph story was provided with a caption and/or title, written by their authors.
I received a grant from the Patricia Seppälä Foundation which enables me to take part in the international festival of photojournalism “Visa pour l’Image” in Perpignan, France in September, 3rd to 9th, 2012.
This trip is a part of my dissertation project. Festival will be a great occasion for me to learn more about journalistic images and then use this knowledge in my pedagogical work (i.e. teaching press photography).
The information collected through meetings, photography exhibitions and screenings I would also like to dedicate to preliminary research for the article about connotative interpretation of photojournalistic images. I would like, as well, to collect contacts to photojournalists for interviews for my research work.
Joanna Łucja Kędra 