Sheree Banez

Professor Ward
Art 133-07
18 February 2016
Unit Paper #2
The medium of art has a voice; An artist can use the tools of his craft to communicate to
others visually. The study of visual culture is important to childrens art education. According to
Hurwitz and Day (2007), raising a childs awareness to their exposure to visual messages will
help them navigate through a barrage of influential thoughts and ideas. Although art can be used
to sensitize citizens to pressing issues and rally a call to action, it can also create biases that lead
to generational prejudice. Students need to understand the strategies behind the positive and
negative messages they are viewing, which necessitates the application of curriculum that goes
beyond the study of traditional art principles. Olivia Gude (2004) encourages conceptual insights
in artmaking. Students can explore the interaction of textiles, positioning, and other postmodern
principles which can create art of substantial meaning. Artist Chris Jordan demonstrated this in a
Ted-Talk (2008) featuring photographic images that explicitly turned powerful statistics into art.
Teachers can help young students identify modern visual messages and identify the ones
they are most influenced by. Help them think of positive messages that are important to todays
kids and create art that repeat these ideas, or use current visual images and alter the messages
they are sending. Regardless of age, Barrett (2003) shares that its important to know how and if
personal opinions are being shifted by their own visual culture.
References:
Barrett, T. (2003). Interpreting visual culture. Art Education. 56(2), 6-12.
Gude, O. (2004) Postmodern principles: In search of a 21st century art education. Art Education,
57(1), 6-14.
Hurwitz, A., & Day, M. (2007). Children and their art: Methods for the elementary school, (8th
ed.). Thompson Wadsworth.
http://www.ted.com Artist Chris Jordan