Visual Research

The research described here was conducted by Scott R. McMaster, a Newfoundland born artist and educator now living in Montreal and a new Ph.D. in Art Education at Concordia University. His dissertation ‘Crowdsourcing Global Culture: Visual Representation in the Age of Information’ was funded by the QC Government and has earned him the National Art Education Association’s prestigious ‘Elliot Eisner Doctoral Dissertation Award’, the highest accolade for an emerging scholar in the field of fine arts education.

Scott grew up in the small city of Corner Brook and discovering a love for photography enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at Sir Wilfred Grenfell School of Fine Arts. There he dabbled in just about every area of visual arts and majored in photography and multimedia/sculpture, graduating in 2000.

Scott then left his home town to travel and teach abroad in Asia and Korea. He lived, worked and travelled there for over eight years and returned to his studies in 2008 later completing a Masters of Education in Information Technology from Memorial University in 2010.

 

Scott has been photographing the world from his unique perspective for over 15 years and has exhibited in Canada and Asia. His photos explore abstract landscapes of waste and follow the de-evolution of man-made materials, playing upon viewer’s notions of narrative and traditional beauty. His current academic research involves the use of crowd sourcing technologies and image-based research to explore the effects of globalization. Studying imagery from around the world through the lens of popular visual culture he hopes to reveal strategies for teaching visual literacy and ways to integrate the critical assessment of visual culture into formal and informal learning environments. He also enjoys hiking, travel and exploring new cultures.