The Self & Visual Culture
The most prominent thought that appears in my mind when I think of visual culture is the ability to express heritage or manifests of societies in an observable medium. Visual culture is, in my mind, the visual expression of one’s social group. This group can come a variety of unique sources; wether it be from something like pop culture or your nationality, the articulation of the “traditions” of your group in a visual manner is — to me — visual culture. Personally, visual culture has predominately presented itself in my life at different times, in completely separate settings. The first way in which visual culture played a noticeable part in my life was the first time I moved. Of course, from the moment I developed the ability to process what I saw I was surrounded by visual culture. However, these visuals only became truly prominent when they completely changed. After growing up ten years in Brazil, the visual change from a Latino culture to a European one really grabbed my eye. Architecture, classrooms, and even the same foods looked different. From then on, visual culture would become extremely apparent every time I moved countries. However, visual culture predominately presented itself to me again when I arrived in New York. A beacon of different culture, — heritage and otherwise — New York really took my understanding of how culture is expressed to a new extent. People go out of their way to express their differences. It was something new. Something truly visually engaging. Actually, that’s why I think visual culture is such an enticing field of study — the ability to manifest and therefore observe culture allows us to materialize abstract ideas and “traditions” of cultures.
