How can scholars harness visual arts, media, and methods? A DRMC Visual Methods and Media Panel

On 12 May 2026 the DRMC hosted a Visual Methods and Media Panel, appropriately titled, 'How can scholars harness visual arts, media, and methods?'

 

The panel was moderated by Sam Hoyle (History, Durham University) and included Laura Channing (Assistant Professor, History, Durham University), Vivian Myron (History, Durham University), Nawal Watali (Geography, Durham University), Julia Handelman-Smith (Director, Into the Light), and Brian Castellani (Director, Durham Research Methods Centre, Durham University).

 

Several themes emerged across the discussion. One was the growing recognition that visual methods are no longer peripheral to research. They are becoming increasingly central to how scholars immerse themselves in topics, organise knowledge, analyse complex systems, and communicate ideas to wider audiences.

 

Another theme was the importance of community engagement and the role the arts can play in both research and community wellbeing. The panel explored how visual and creative practices can help build dialogue, support participation, create shared spaces for reflection, and connect academic work more directly to lived experience and local communities.

The discussion also explored how visual materials can function as data, how diagrams and images can shape conceptual thinking, and how visual outputs themselves can become legitimate forms of research dissemination. Questions from the audience extended these conversations into issues of ethics, exhibition, interdisciplinarity, software, and public communication.

 

A further theme was the growing importance of visual literacy within contemporary scholarship. Researchers increasingly work in environments shaped by images, interfaces, maps, dashboards, networks, and digital media, yet many still receive little formal training in how to critically engage visual forms as part of their methodological toolkit.

 

The event formed part of the DRMC’s wider commitment to creating spaces where scholars can experiment with methods, media, and new ways of thinking about research across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

 

 

 

USEFUL LINKS

 

INTO THE LIGHT (COUNTY DURHAM) – Julia Handelman-Smith  

 

NAWAL WATALI’S PHOTOJOURNALISM WEBSITE

 

ART AND SCIENCE FACTORY Visual Complexity Art – Brian Castellani

 

HISTORICAL ECONOMIC DATA VISUALIZATION – Laura Channing

·      https://www.aehnetwork.org/

·      https://chartle.cc/

 

WORKING WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES – Vivian Myron

·      PHRC – Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University

https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/

·      Edwards, Elizabeth, and Janice Hart. Photographs, Objects, Histories: On the Materiality of Images. Taylor & Francis Group, 2004.

·      Langford, Martha. Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums. Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8a1UBV1RWFkC.

·      Gil Pasternak. The Handbook of Photography Studies. 1st ed. Edited by Gil Pasternak. Routledge, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003103974.