Tangential visibility: Becoming self through creating socio-cultural portraits

This paper reports on student learning outcomes of a Visual Art curriculum in a secondary school context in New South Wales. The case study presented was informed by longitudinal research carried out between 19992001. The research established that students continue to be preoccupied with the question Who am I? as it informs their humanity and subjectivity. However, a significant number elected to deepen understanding of self through studying the narratives of others. The research also identified a shift away from traditional self-portraits to socio-cultural narrative portraits. Tangential visibility was defined as the ability to find new, creative insights about self at intersections between self and other. This orientation offers students opportunities to relocate their voices in representing others. From this position they can explore spaces between individual and collective subjectivities and relocate their identities in a wider, socio-cultural performative narrative.