Visual Culture and Visual Literacy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the contemporary broadening of art and design curriculum to include all forms of visual and material arts, including historical and contemporary fine arts, popular arts, and designed objects, and the concept of visual literacy with regard to curriculum. The chapter has three sections. The first section describes the realm and forms of visual and material culture, referred to here as visual culture. The second section provides a synopsis of curriculum issues and debates related to visual culture approaches to art and design education. Visual culture curricula take many forms internationally, several examples of which are mentioned here, and involve an underlying criticality as well as an emphasis on production and analysis. Learning in and through visual culture requires increasing levels of visual literacy, which is discussed in the third section of the chapter.