Visual Autobiography

images and words in self-narratives

Abstract

Autobiographical practice represents a pedagogical and formative tool, since the rereading of one’s own story, starting from the present, allows re-signification and a new interpretation with a gaze directed toward the future and transformation.

In practices of formative autobiography, the prevailing medium is verbal language, while visual language is often considered a simple tool for eliciting writing.

With the present contribution, it is argued that in visual autobiography the space of meaning is realized in the interaction of multiple languages.

Starting from a theoretical framework on visual autobiography and theories of educational mediation, some productions are analyzed in which autobiographical practice arises from the intertwining of different visual and textual media.

In particular, “Romanzo di figure”, a photo-autobiographical text by Lalla Romano, and “Pucelle”, a graphic autobiography by Florence Duprè la Tour, are analyzed.

In the interaction of languages, processes of symbolization, distancing, and activation of memory take place, which can be configured as useful and transferable devices also in the pedagogical field, capable of activating metacognitive and transformative processes within autobiographical practices.

The hypothesis is that such interaction is structural: autobiographical meaning emerges in the intermediate space between word and image.