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in partnership with Art UK and with Art Fund support
In 2021, a House of Commons committee found that 1 in 4 teachers reported lacking confidence in their ability to develop pupils’ understanding of Black history/cultural diversity.¹ In response, Autograph launched Seeing Differently: Learning Together, a two-year project in partnership with Art UK to research, make and distribute a free digital learning resource that draws on Autograph’s unique photographic collection.
The project aims to:
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Support students to learn about subjects and stories that are often left out of historical and contemporary visual records and narratives, and meet a proven need for diverse curriculum content nationally.
• Offer free and accessible ways for teachers and students to engage with Autograph’s collection of photography charting the contributions of diverse cultures in Britain over two centuries.
• Support students and teachers in exploring the creative and critical power of visual representation in shaping an understanding of ourselves and of others.
• Promote visual literacy by reflecting on the act of ‘seeing’ and of ‘being seen’, and support students to recognise their own agency to make meaning through image making.
Through the project we directly involved local schools, their teachers and students to develop the new resource through CPD and sessions with artist educators. Their experiences were recorded and included in the new resource, to build confidence in other teachers on how to have open and honest conversations about race and diversity with their students.
Engaged with our collection through artist-led workshops
Participated in Seeing Differently
For teachers and educators to use in the classroom.
To deliver creative workshops in schools
Working with a group of teachers, artists and researchers
From Autograph's collection introduced to students
Delivered in local schools
On the side of Autograph's gallery in Shoreditch, London
Of photographs reflecting on the act of 'seeing' and 'being seen'
For Seeing Differently, Autograph brought together teachers, artists, researchers and educators to create a new resource for schools.
Members of the co-development group included: Andy Ash (Associate Professor at UCL Institute of Education), Priscilla Boonin (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lead and Year 6 Teacher), Ali Eisa (Learning & Participation Manager at Autograph), Jolie Hockings (Engagement Curator at Autograph), Kate Hodgson (Artist Educator at Halley House School), Amir Nathan (Head of Visual Arts at Eastbrook School), Dr Kanae Minowa (Honorary Senior Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Education), Dianne Minnicucci (Head of Photography and Deputy Curriculum Leader for Media Arts), Ella Phillips (Visual Artist), Daniel Regan (Visual Artist), Ruth Saddler (Art and Inclusion Lead at Riverley Primary School), Jaia Sowden (Team Assistant at Autograph).
The group met to discuss, investigate and dismantle what learning resources are, and how they can best support classroom teaching.
We considered how we could collectively create a new resource, using photography from Autograph's collection to respond to issues facing young people in the education system today.
The aim of the resource was to engage students in conversations around race, representation, photography and visual literacy, and support educators to teach a more diverse curricula effectively and confidently. From the sessions, the artists in the group developed activities that were trialled and tested in partnering schools. The activities were reflected on and refined to make up the final resource.
In November 2023, artists Daniel Regan and Ella Phillips designed and delivered workshops in partnering schools to test run ideas that were developed in the co-development group.
The workshops set out to interrogate how we use photography to tell stories and how narratives can be shaped by the individual perspective of the person telling that story. They sought to draw on students' instincts and build curiosity, creativity and empathy within the classroom.
The teaching resource launched in April 2024 on Art UK. Seeing Differently: Learning Together Through Photographs is a free, online resource exploring how photography tells stories and how narratives can be shaped by individual perspectives.
The resource contains creative classroom activities and discussion points, plus online access to photographs from Autograph's collection. It's for KS 3-5, and some of the activities could be adapted for younger students.
The Seeing Differently: Learning Together resource was developed with artists Daniel Regan and Ella Phillips, in partnership with teachers and students from Eastbrook, Halley House, Randal Cremer Primary, Riverly Primary, Stoke Newington and Thomas Tallis schools.
¹ Quote from Black history and cultural diversity of the curriculum, by Rob Long, Nerys Roberts and Aaron Kulakiewicz, published 24 June 2021. Summary of key themes. Accessed on 20 June 2023.
Images on page: courtesy of the co-development team, schools, teachers and students engaged in the project.
Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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