The Passport Photo Project: Methodological Explorations With Photography and Arts-Based Educational Research

• In Event: Photo/Voice, Film, and Visual Literacy in Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

In this paper, I offer viewpoints that help us reconsider photography as a methodological approach and medium of “reporting” in educational research. I ask: How might arts-based research create space for a more expansive engagement with photography? I reflect on these questions through my long-term arts-based research project titled The Passport Photo Project (PPP). In PPP, I reframe a collaborative engagement with photography beyond the binary of photographer or photographed. I invite participants to encounter the everyday object of passport photos in a new light and to rearticulate what exists on the plane of the photograph. I hope this paper compels arts-based researchers to consider and to explore the multiple ways in which we can engage with photographs and photography.

Author

• Vivek Vellanki, Indiana University