Photoabstraction: An arts-based educational research into artistic abstraction and its relationship to the image of the city.

Abstract

Abstract art was consolidated as a means of expression that went beyond the figurative to achieve new aesthetic ambitions. This study is based on an assessment of the forms of thought offered by artistic abstraction and how they have influenced visual creations and languages, with particular emphasis on the contributions made to the ways in which we think and imagine architecture.Recognising the potential of abstraction for teaching, we programmed an art education project in which participants got to know, value and become aware of a series of abstract works through their visual interpretation in the city. Architectural photography was used for this purpose, reflecting certain formal and aesthetic similarities with the reference works. The teaching strategy has been analysed from the perspective of Arts-Based Educational Research. The results are visually composed, generating new canvases that combine recognised abstract works with the visual definitions made around them. The starting hypotheses led us to investigate the scope of the visual thinking of university students and their level of understanding of the processes of abstraction, achieving the activation of an aesthetic gaze that transcends the visual recognition of the city.