We often refer to this TEDx talk by Brian Kennedy in our work, so wanted to share it here. This is from when Kennedy was director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College (he is now Director of Toledo Museum of Art), speaking about the growing field of visual literacy and why we need it.
Kennedy notes in his speech that, although society has become much more visual, visual literacy itself has declined, and what’s necessary is to “reintegrate the capacity of our senses” for the digital age.
Much of our work and thinking stems from the idea that ours is an increasingly visual world and in order to get children reading (and get everyone interested in words, text and storytelling) we must present it in a way that reflects how they navigate the world – ie. visually.