*Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, panel 77 (recovered)
My proposed intervention, Atlas of Fragments reimagines Aby Warburg’s ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’ as a tool for teaching, thinking, and making together. It invites participants to explore social questions through image, juxtaposition, and conversation. The project emphasises process over resolution; connection over classification.
At the root of this project is Warburg’s idea of the “Law of the Good Neighbor” – a way of arranging images not by strict categories, but by what they spark when placed side by side. What happens when a protest image sits next to a family photo? When a diagram of a border wall shares space with a painting of a garden? The project builds upon an intersectional, and interdisciplinary way of thinking that reflects my undergraduate liberal arts experience, and is at the heart of my studio and teaching practice today.
This logic of relational arrangement resonates with Sara Ahmed’s (2018) description of her research into use: “To follow use is to make connections between bodies of work that are usually kept distinct, including literatures in design, psychology and biology that make use of use to explain the acquisition of form.” In Atlas of Fragments, following use means paying attention to how images and materials acquire new meaning through their proximity and co-presence.
The project asks participants to build their own “image panels” using images that feel both urgent and overlooked: personal photos, archive clippings, internet fragments, ephemera from everyday life. Through collage, drawing, and collaborative storytelling, we will explore intersectional themes such as race, gender, migration, ecology, and class. Atlas of Fragments can take shape as a workshop, an exhibition, or a digital collaboration. My hope is that the project will demonstrate inclusion as both a subject and methodology, centring multimodal learning strategies that supports neurodiverse learning strategies and collaborative thinking.
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Proposed Bibliography:
Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a feminist life. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cambridge, C. (2018). Sara Ahmed – Uses of Use – Diversity, Utility and the University. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avKJ2w1mhng [Accessed 2 Sep. 2022].
Clarke, A. (2024). [online] Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing | DAAP. Available at: https://daap.network.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). On Intersectionality: Essential Writings. New York: New Press.
Davies, M. (2022). The White Spaces of Dyslexic Difference: An Intersectional Analysis. Springer International Publishing AG..
Edcat.net. (2025). edcat – artists’ publication catalogue. [online] Available at: https://edcat.net [Accessed 26 May 2025].
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
hooks, bell (2025). Art on My Mind. The New Press.
Le Guin, U.K. (2019). The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Ignota.
Steinberg, M.P. (2012). THE LAW OF THE GOOD NEIGHBOR. Common Knowledge, 18(1), pp.128–133. doi:https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754x-1456926.
Hi Ella
I hope that you are well. Thank you for sharing your intervention design ideas. I think this is a compelling intervention, grounded within art pedagogy (a reinterpretation of Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas), and framed within inclusive principles, drawing on Davies’ work on how the dominance of written text in education can marginalise students and how multimodal practices can support neurodiverse students. A non-linear visual approach also links clearly to LO2. Your intervention challenges rigid classification systems and instead focuses on relational and multimodal exploration with the potential to address aspects of intersectionality when considering what is ‘both urgent and overlooked’ (LO4).
It’s good that you bring Ahmed’s work on ‘use’ and Crenshaw’s intersectionality, helping to demonstrate your understanding of practices of inequity and their impact (LO2), maybe you can also draw on Reyes et al.’ systematic review of interventions in HE. I just wonder if you’d consider including feedback mechanisms to allow students to respond to the experience, perhaps using feedback prompts (What does this arrangement say that the individual images can’t?, How has the meaning of an image changed by being in that position?). and I also wonder if you think you may need to provide some scaffolding (Vygosky, Bruner) to help those students who may struggle with open-ended tasks, ambiguity or non-linearity, for example, some intro prompts (e.g. What kinds of images are urgent, overlooked, or underrepresented in your world?), or thematic anchors, if needed (e.g belonging, the body in public, silence, faith, freedom, otherness, legacies, etc)
There are elements of positionality (LO3) through your description of your background in liberal arts and studio practice and you could expand on this by considering any other experiences, insights or observations that have inspired this intervention, and why it is important to you. How do elements of your identity shape the way you frame or facilitate?. It’d also be good to consider your intervention aligns with/responds to/ critiques/ considers/builds on guidance on inclusive practices from UAL, sector frameworks (e.g. Advance HE), industry, to help demonstrate LO1.
There are some resources below you may find useful and I’ve included the learning outcomes too to provide a focus for the reflective report when you come to it.
Regards, Victor
Potentially useful resources
Bayeck (2022) – On (research) positionality and how identity shapes learning space.
Reyes et al. (2022) – Systematic review of disability-inclusive interventions in HE
Schiffer (2020): positionality and reflexivity
Advance HE (2021). Embedding Inclusive Teaching and Learning
Offers guidance on aligning inclusive curriculum design with national HE policy.
https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/framework-inclusive-learning-and-teaching
Below, just a reminder of the learning outcomes.
LO1: Critically evaluate institutional, national and global perspectives of equality and diversity in relation to your academic practice context. [Enquiry]
LO2: Manifest your understanding of practices of inequity, their impact, and the implications for your professional context. [Knowledge]
LO3: Articulate the development of your positionality and identity through the lens of inclusive practices. [Communication]
LO4: Enact a sustainable transformation that applies intersectional social justice within your practice. [Realisation]
Hi Victor,
Thank you so much for this feedback! I really appreciate your encouragement and useful suggestions. I agree that adding some feedback prompts and scaffolding could really help strengthen the intervention. I’ll definitely look into weaving in some of those elements, as well as exploring the Reyes et al. review and linking more clearly to frameworks like Advance HE. I’ll also reflect more on my own positionality to better articulate why this project matters to me. The resources you shared are really helpful! Thanks again!!
All the best,
Ella