Illuminating Perspectives through Critical Visual Literacy: 56th Annual IVLA Con

In the United States, young Black girls and Black women are constantly misperceived through distorted societal visions that obscure their raced-gendered identities, diminish their agency, and erase their lived experiences. In this talk, I present the intersectional multimodal analysis framework as a critical practice of looking that illuminates the brilliance, beauty, and humanity of young Black girls and women. In the first part of the talk, I explicate how the intersectional multimodal analysis framework helps us to fully “see” young Black girls and Black women through critical readings of their visual art (e.g., photographs, digital collages, drawings). In the second part, I invite engagement with the intersectional multimodal analysis framework through a curated gallery walk of visual imagery created by and for young Black girls and women.

Visual media is powerful. The images that we see shape how we understand the world around us. Conversely, when we make and share images, we are shaping how others see the world. Therefore, we hold immense power every time we click the shutter or the share button. This power comes with a responsibility to use visual media ethically. Across the visual media industries, ethics are often described in terms of codes or guidelines, and ethical debates are often reduced to descriptions of “ethical” or “unethical” behaviour. These binary approaches are incredibly limiting because they foster an illusion that there are immovable rules that are universally relied upon to navigate each situation with ethical certainty, and that it is possible to be faultless. The reality is messier, and we will inevitably make mistakes. In this keynote address, I will aim to do three things: (i) to illustrate the power of images, demonstrating the vital importance of visual media ethics; (ii) to argue that, rather than adhering to rote ethical guidelines, we need to cultivate ethical literacy; and (iii) to propose a principles-based approach to visual media ethics as a way forward.  A principles-based approach offers a more critical way of understanding and navigating ethical dilemmas, by taking into consideration the context, relationships, and other factors when making ethical decisions. Moreover, a principles-based approach can help us to have more productive conversations about ethics by giving us more expansive language. By framing conversations about ethics in terms of principles, we can overcome polarisation and achieve a wider consensus about ethics within the industry.