The Art of Seeing™ is a visual literacy program developed by the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine and the McMaster Museum of Art in partnership. The program encourages participants to develop empathetic, holistic, and humanistic thinking, to enhance personal and professional growth. Through evidence-based looking and facilitated discussion, individuals will interact with each other, artworks, and exhibitions to discover how the work of artists reflects and expresses human experience across time and cultures. This analytic and experiential program uses visual art to generate a deeper understanding of oneself and others.

This program mobilizes McMaster University Faculty of Medicine’s model of problem-based learning through interdisciplinary arts experiences, divulging lessons which can be applied outside of medicine. The Art of Seeing™ is designed to make us better observers by developing greater skills in non-verbal and visual communication, observation, and reflection by disrupting traditional colonial ways of knowing and seeing. The program encourages participants to utilize these skills in reflecting on and challenging individual and systemic biases as a means to realize greater social equity. Familiarity with these skills is achieved through visual literacy training and formal analysis of visual art, both within and beyond the gallery space.

The Art of Seeing™ program has been offered to McMaster residents, faculty, staff, community leaders and businesses at several Ontario sites. The program is tailored to suit each group’s needs in terms of content, length of program, and specific location, and range from a half-day workshop to a six-week course. These sessions can be hosted in a single location or presented at a variety of cultural institutions.

Artful Encounters: Sites of Visual Inquiry, 2021

Time, Space, and Imagination: The Art of Seeing at McMaster University
Joyce Zazulak and Nicole Knibb

Macleans Magazine, Canadian University Guidebook 2018

The Socratic Method Interview with Joyce Zazulak and Nicole Knibb
Jennifer Lewington

Medical Humanities Journal, September 2017

The art of medicine: arts-based training in observation and mindfulness for fostering the empathic response in medical residents.
Joyce Zazulak, May Sanaee, Andrea Frolic, Nicole Knibb, Eve Tesluk, Edward Hughes, Lawrence E M Grierson