Have you ever wondered what to make of an image? One way of looking at artworks is through using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), which guides people through a process of curious exploration, critical reflection and collective meaning-making.

The Thinking Eye is excited to collaborate with the Athena Art Foundation to offer a special online session which will focus on one pre-modern artwork relating to ambiguities around sex and gender identity. Together, we will explore this theme and learn more about VTS as a strategy for looking at art.

Date and time

Wed, 1 June 2022

18:00 – 18:45 BST

Open to everyone, no experience necessary.

Take a unique opportunity to focus your attention on a single photograph. Janneke van Leeuwen leads a group discussion using the Visual Thinking Strategies methodology. During the session, participants will 'unpack' the photograph on display through their combined reading. Expect to have your views listened to and possibly challenged.

£5/£2.50 members & concessions.

The Thinking Eye’s founder Janneke van Leeuwen leads a group discussion focussed on a single photograph, initially without any context provided. Using the Visual Thinking Eye methodology, the group will 'unpack' the photograph through their combined reading. Expect to have your views listened to and possibly challenged.

£5/£2.50 members & concessions. Ticket holders are able to access the gallery exhibitions on the same day.

Book here:

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/talks-and-events/look-again-group-looking-session-1

You are invited to the annual Festival of Stuff at the UCL Institute of Making. On Saturday 7th July, the Festival's final day is celebrated with an epic public street festival extravaganza from 1-5pm. There will be a whole host of curious things to get stuck into making and doing, which are drop-in, free and open to all.

Janneke van Leeuwen, Founder of The Thinking Eye, invites you to explore the Thresholds/Virtual Colour Rooms Installation she made at the Institute of Making with recycled teak wood from the Bloomsbury Theatre. The installation is a public adaptation of one of her PhD research projects at the UCL Institute of Neurology and the Wellcome Collection, in which she investigates the relationship between visual art, the social brain and dementia.

Drop in, no booking required, doors open at 1 pm

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

Free event.

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

Free event.

Exploring our inner worlds with Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)

For a long time, it was assumed that the brain separates personal thoughts from factual information about the world. However, a growing body of research suggests that the same brain networks that analyse and store visual and verbal information also regulate complex social behaviour. In other words, our social identity affects the way we see and communicate. These social brain networks are also involved when we engage with art, which has been harnessed by the arts-based facilitated learning method VTS. VTS enables people to examine how their personal experiences inform the way they process complex visual information in carefully moderated group discussions. In this workshop the social brain dynamics of VTS will be discussed in relation to its value as a person-centred educational or therapeutic instrument. The session will finish with a demonstration of a VTS group discussion on a visual artwork.

This workshop is for psychology students at Tilburg University

NB: UCL Institute of Making members only event

Every month this new informal research event will feature a researcher and how they navigate the Makespace to develop their academic work. Come along to make new connections, and generate ideas for how the tools in our Makespace could be used in your own research.

Janneke van Leeuwen, Founder of The Thinking Eye, will present the Thresholds/Virtual Colour Rooms Installation she made at the Institute of Making. The installation is a public adaptation of one of her PhD research projects at the UCL Institute of Neurology and the Wellcome Collection, in which she investigates the relationship between visual art, the social brain and dementia.

Drop in, no booking required, doors open at 5.45pm

Join us on 24 November 2017 for an exciting day of presentations, discussions and art experiments about how the arts and sciences, working together, can help to understand dementia.

Ongoing and emerging world-class research will highlight some of the advances the arts can make to dementia research and care. The conference is sponsored by the RSPH Special Interest Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.

Who should attend?

The conference welcomes practitioners from older adult and public health services, artists working with people with dementia or planning to do so, health and social care commissioners and academic researchers.

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

Free event.

One in 3 people born this year in the UK will develop dementia. Although there is no cure, scientists and researchers are working hard to find one. Supported by Guarantors of Brain, we bring you this event to explore what dementia means to us all in the hope of reducing the stigma and fear around it. Through a combination of art and science, we aim to make this topic accessible to everyone. This event will challenge the traditional definitions and common misconceptions, while providing the most current research advances and understanding of dementia through a multimedia approach.

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

Free event.

Conversations in Time is a series of conversations inspired by the American artist, critic and author, Suzi Gablik’s groundbreaking book, Conversations Before the End of Time (1995).Inspired by its still prescient dialogues, artists, writers and cultural thinkers have been recorded in one to one conversations, broadly inspired by the question: What is the purpose or role of art in an age of accelerating social change and environmental uncertainty?New conversations will be added throughout the duration of the Aarhus European Capital of Culture 2017 Public Programme.

https://player.fm/series/conversations-in-time/janneke-van-leeuwen-and-andreas-roepstorff-conversations-in-time

with Mr. Charlie Harrison, Ms. Charlie Murphy, Ms. Janneke Van Leeuwen & Prof. Paul Camic

This is a participatory event that explores how the arts+the sciences can impact research and dementia care. The audience will be invited to 'test out' 4 art experiences that are being developed by collaborators at the Wellcome Collection's Hub residency in dementia. People with and without dementia are welcome to attend.

The Thinking Eye's founder Janneke van Leeuwen invites you all to join her in an open exploration of a visual artwork from the Wellcome Collection, using the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) method.

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

Costs: Free event.

Rietveld alumnus Janneke van Leeuwen will talk about The Thinking Eye's mission and the value of Visual Thinking Strategies in research and practice.

Costs: Free event.

In this VTS Online Summer Session ‘Shaping Open Minds -VTS & the Brain’, The Thinking Eye's Founder Janneke van Leeuwen explores how the arts-based learning method Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) engages our brain in a way that is beneficial to us all.

Look Again invites an intimate group of participants to look intensively at a single photograph they are unfamiliar with and read it out-loud together. This looking group, hosted by Janneke van Leeuwen, works with the VTS method and is focused on slowing down the way in which we as viewers look at images. The sessions bring into question the difference between looking and seeing.

During this special edition of Look Again both sighted and blind people are invited to join as we will explore the presented artwork through both sight and touch.

Costs: Free event.

Between May and September 2016 The Photographers' Gallery invites all visitors to become a Thinker in Residence at The Photographers’ Gallery to think about and talk about photography.

Notice: On the 16th of June The Thinking Eye's Founder Janneke van Leeuwen will be in conversation with Thinker in Residence Programme Leader Oliver Whitehead. There has been a change of time however and the conversation will now take place between 12:00 and 12:45. They will talk about mirrored perspective taking in brain trauma rehabilitation and how this relates to Rochelle Costi's interactive installation at The Photographers' Gallery.

Costs: Free event.

Thinker in Residence Blog