Visual Literacy: Understanding Images across Europe – Past and Present, educational module (4EU+)

Between October 2021 and June 2022 the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw together with the Charles University in Prague and the University of Milan implemented – as part of the 4EU + Alliance – the one-year educational module “Visual Literacy: Understanding Images across Europe – Past and Present”. The second edition of the module was conducted in 2022/2023 and the third edition will start in November 2024 and last until June 2025.

The classes conducted within the framework of the module were taught by lecturers from three partner universities:

The module consists of an online conversatory class, an online tutorial and three in-person two-day workshops, which are held in Milan, Prague and Warsaw.

In 2024/2025 students can choose between five tutoring programs:

  • Multiplied Images: Artistic Practices in the Twentieth Century. The aim of this tutorial, led by Davide Colombo, PhD and Giulia Zompa, PhD is to analyse different artistic practices in the twentieth century, which were based on appropriation, collage, photomontage, found footage and re-enactment. Heterogeneous and non-artistic images will be examined along with visual sources. The contamination of low and high models, as well as the circulation of contemporary art and artists’ iconic images in media and popular culture will also be addressed.
  • Visual literacy: Between Educational, Artistic and Curatorial Approaches. This is a tutorial conducted by Vendula Fremlová, PhD and Pavla Gajdošíková, PhD, which will be focused on contemporary art, art education and curating as a form of dialogue and as a way of broadening critical thinking. The students will be researching the contemporary art field and analysing its tendencies, topics or “turns”. On this basis the students will try to develop their own curatorial project together with educational activities (art mediation). The students will be encouraged to their own artistic attempts to understand the attitude of an artist as well.
  • Understanding Photography, tutorial led by Kamila Dworniczak, PhD, will focus on the comprehensive analysis of the photographic image and its historical and contemporary uses. We will discuss how to interpret documentary, artistic, and reproductive photography and how to use this knowledge in communication practices.
  • Games and Interactive Objects in the 16th-17th Centuries is a tutorial led by Magdalena Herman, PhD. The course explores interactions between players and games, focusing on the interactivity and materiality of card, board, and book games, as well as their roles as objects of play and display. It also examines the relationships between producers and the market, the depiction of games and gameplay, and their role in Early Modern iconography.

  • Materiality of Colours in Late Medieval and Early Modern Art, a tutorial conducted by Karolina Mroziewicz, PhD will explore the physical properties of colours, the economic value of pigments and their use in 15th- and 16th-century art works. The students will experiment with the process of paint production and colour printmaking as well as reflect on the conditions that made pre-modern images legible, meaningful and precious to their pre-modern beholders. They will also experience first hand the challenges and limitations of the reconstruction of the late medieval and early modern colour palette.

The presentation with practical information about the second edition of the project can be downloaded here.

The classes begin in November 2024.

Ostatnia aktualizacja 06/09/2024

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