Visual literacy as a tool for personal and social transformation

This article examined visuality as a social construct that tacitly regulates perception and prospection. Building on Foster’s definition, it argues that visuality normalizes cultural frameworks, shaping interpretative habits and determining how individuals and communities envision possible futures. The article situated visuality within the broader field of visual literacy, where images – through repetition and normalization – operate as powerful vehicles of meaning. Drawing on five visual literacy workshops in Cyprus, Norway and Corsica, it demonstrates the pervasive influence of visuality on cognition and emotion and shows how images shape interpretative frameworks that both define identity and limit change and transformation individually and collectively. The article suggested that specifically designed tools can disrupt limiting anticipations. It proposes, as well, visual literacy workshops as a powerful educational and reflective tool to slow down automatisms, expand critical awareness and foster the capacity to imagine and embrace alternative realities, thereby enhancing personal and collective transformation.