Embracing the Unknown in Community Arts Zone Visual Arts

Telling stories through photographs is certainly not a new or novel concept; however, thinking about image-making as a way of unknowing what we currently know is quite different from traditional approaches to photography. Built on an existing conceptual framework, writings on unknowing, we apply unknowing as a guiding method and heuristic to understand what a group of young people are trying to say and reimagine through the act of image-making. Research reported in this article from the Community Arts Zone visual arts project features a series of photograph projects across high school contexts where students created a Cindy Sherman-style conceptual photograph with an artist statement. The researchers engaged in a process of unknowing to interpret the photographs where they read through the visuals and engaged with modes in play and with observational fieldnotes about participants to draw out implications for such work for literacy teaching and learning.