Using Visuals to Discover Connections

I facilitated a short connection and reflection session for a community of practice at a university, recently.

As I planned the session – I thought about how I wanted the group to stretch a little out of their comfort zone – to connect with each other in a meaningful way, that was beyond the usual small talk. Also that the session should be implicitly fun because there is a lot of evidence of relationship between fun and learning.

It turns out that the session I facilitated was both fun and enabled sharing and connection, so much so that people said: thanks, that was great, I thought the session was very well run, with very useful exercises to get us all sharing our experiences and ideas.

Photo cards

I have several packs of photo cards and visuals I have collected that I use in coaching and group work, they are great for stirring imagination and tapping into storytelling because the visuals are easily linked to obvious metaphors and symbols.

Examples in the set that I used in this session are various animals, train tracks disappearing into the horizon, a carousel and a keyhole in a door.

In this situation I used the cards to help a group of around 20 people (from PhD to Professor) to build an understanding of the who was in the room and their individual perceptions of the shared topic.

How to Create a Spontaneous Gallery

I spread the cards out on a table at the side of the room and invite people to select a photo they feel drawn to;

An instinctual response is fine, or you can link it to a specific question or topic, e.g. What does x mean to you?

It is important to explain that it is okay for there not to be a meaning initially – the meaning may emerge as they talk about it with someone else.

When they have chosen a card and returned to their seat, I have them pair and share, asking them to describe what they see in the image and why they think they were drawn to that image. This gives people the space to explore and discover meaning before they choose what to share with the whole group.

I stick chosen cards on wall, as each person feedback the meaning to the group. A lovely thing about this activity is that when you have stuck all the pictures on the wall and scribed captions you have a visual map of the connections and patterns in the room. A spontaneous gallery.

You can also start to draw or encourage the group to draw relationships, categorise, clump or link the images and concepts to suggest a story. There are many ways you can expand out from this simple icebreaker photo card activity.