Interpreting Our Visual Culture: Teaching Visual Literacy Through Photography

Please join Pulitzer Center and the DC Public Schools (DCPS) Arts on the evening of Tuesday, January 23, 2018, for a special discussion and workshop on visual literacy led by Nathan Diamond, director of Arts at DCPS, and award-winning photojournalist Allison Shelley.

How do images impact our perceptions of current events? How can an understanding of how images are created help us become more informed consumers of visual culture? Diamond and Shelley will draw on their experiences as photographers and educators to lead a discussion that explores these questions. Participants will also engage in a series of hands-on photography and curation exercises that examine how the creation and ordering of images can influence a viewer's perception of a community.

The workshop takes place in the "Everyday DC" photography exhibition, which is on view at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery from January 9, 2018, through January 26, 2018. The exhibition presents a visual narrative of everyday life in Washington, DC, through the eyes of more than 100 DCPS middle school students from all four quadrants of the city. It is the culmination of a unit designed by the Pulitzer Center in collaboration with DCPS and facilitated by over a dozen DCPS visual arts teachers.

The "Everyday DC" project is funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The project is also supported by the Pepco Edison Gallery, which generously donated the space for the exhibition. For more information about the unit plan and exhibition, contact [email protected]