ACRL Image Resources Discussion Group

In person participation (includes: IVLA membership, 5 coffee breaks, 2 lunches, welcome & farewell drinks, congress bag):

• early-bird - 240€ (including membership: 53€ / $60)
• regular - 270€ (including membership: 53€ / $60)
• student - 150€ (including membership: 35€ / $40)

Online participation (includes: IVLA membership, live-streamed/recorded keynotes, two full-day live-streamed sessions which will be conducted in Eastern European Standard Time):

• regular - 80€ (including membership: 53€ / $60)
• student - 50€ (including membership: 35€ / $40)

Scholarships: 

The IVLA Offers two scholarships: one for artists and one for students to attend the conference. Please see here for more information. 

The local organizers have made block reservations and asked for special rates for the IVLA 2022 Conference participants in the hotels listed on our website. For these prices, please take note of the given deadline, use the hotel-specific discount code, and contact the hotel directly (booking agencies do not recognize the discount code). Please note that there is a limited number of special rate rooms available and bookings are solely made on a "first booked, first reserved" basis – thus booking well in advance is recommended. All guests are required to make their own accommodation arrangements; accommodation is not included in the conference participation fee.

About Jyväskylä

Home to 144,000 inhabitants, Jyväskylä is the seventh-largest city in Finland. Jyväskylä is located in the middle of the most beautiful Lakeland Finland and is part of the largest unbroken lake district in Europe. It is renowned as a city of education and as a center for a wide range of events. In Jyväskylä, you'll find the largest number of masterful buildings in the world designed by the world-famous architect and academician Alvar Aalto (impressive portfolio of 29 locations).

The city is home to students in many different fields that constitute over 30% of the population. Local higher-education institutions are located in close proximity to one another and are engaged in various forms of collaboration. For this reason, the city is like one large campus. Key services in the city center are located within walking distance.

Extend your stay to explore and experience Jyväskylä on your own. Here are just a few ideas: 

• Private sauna on the lake –  Saunakatamaraani – Saunalautta- Saunan vuokraus – Jyväskylä (palsau.fi) or A-HOTEL.com – Little Finland – Sauna Boat, Boat, Jyväskylä, Finland – price, reviews, booking, contact

• Canoeing on one of the thousand lakes – Home (tavinsulka.com)

• Bicycling in forests – Versona Safaris and Fatbike Rental – Wilderness Adventure awaits You!

Travel

Jyväskylä can be easily reached by train, bus, or plane. Helsinki Airport has around 50 regularly operating airlines. The airport has around 80 scheduled destinations to other parts of Europe and 21 direct long-haul routes to Asia, the Middle East, and North America. For international travelers, we recommend flying to Helsinki-Vantaa international airport and taking the train to Jyväskylä. The train platform is situated directly at the airport. You can buy your ticket in advance from VR by searching for the connection: Helsinki Airport-Jyväskylä (this includes a ticket to Tikkurila). The regional train will take you directly from the airport to Tikkurila (travel time: 8 min) where you change into a long-distance train to Jyväskylä (travel time: about 3h). Depending on your connection, you may have to change your train in Tampere - check this out when you buy your ticket. Trains operate rather smoothly during the summer months.

By train and bus

The train and bus connections are excellent with several daily connections between Helsinki and Jyväskylä and other cities in Finland. The train journey from Helsinki to Jyväskylä takes about 3.5 hours and the bus takes about 3.5 to 4.5 hours. Both trains and buses arrive and depart from Jyväskylä Travel Center, located in the city center. The cost of a one-way ticket is approx. €10-40 (EUR) depending on the time of the day and how much in advance it is purchased.

By plane

Jyväskylä Airport is situated in Tikkakoski, approximately 20 minutes' drive from Jyväskylä. NyxAir operates flights to Jyväskylä from Helsinki Airport roughly twice a day and the flight takes about 50 minutes. There is no shuttle bus service between the airport and the city center, nor taxi station; therefore, it is necessary to order a taxi to the airport in advance. The cost of a taxi drive from the airport to the city is approx. €50 (EUR).

The past two years of ongoing restrictions caused by the worldwide pandemic have shown the importance of the visual in the everyday. Our lives have become more visual than ever before – from intense visual-sharing practices with relatives and friends, video conferencing, and online education, to the visual presence of pandemic contexts in cityscapes, artistic practices in local communities, media feeds including charts and graphs, and creation of remixed images as a commentary to the crises. It has become clear that we increasingly need visual literacy in terms of image creation, reception, and visual thinking. Therefore, in these current unpredictable (visual) times, we aim for the impossible – to envision the futures of visual literacy.

We invite scholars, educators, students, and practitioners from all over the world to discuss theoretical insights and to share research, artistic, and educational practices around the concept of visual literacy and/or in dialogue with multimodality, multi-sensory experiences, and multiliteracies. The concept of visual literacy has been used for over five decades in education, art, museum studies, information design, photography, and new literacies research, but currently, we have reached the point when we need to (re)build and (re)discover the (new) connections between the variety of theories, disciplinary traditions and educational practices in visual literacy and beyond.

Presentation types

Paper presentation (onsite and online)

Presentations (20 min + 10 min discussion) by one or more speakers are meant to introduce ongoing or completed projects related to visual literacy in any discipline or area of practice. Theoretical contributions are also welcome. For this format, participants can choose to present online if they are not able to travel to the conference site. There will be an online session stream in addition to the onsite parallel sessions.

Multimedia paper presentation

The Multimedia Paper Session (60 min) will have a dedicated slot in the program without any parallel sessions. Each presenter will have a separate spot to display any materials through which they want to present their work, e.g., poster(s), photographs, drawings, multimedia, etc. This format is a less formal opportunity to discuss work-in-progress, educational experiments, pedagogical practices, or introduce completed projects to the audience in a more interactive way. Presenters will have about one minute for a pitch talk, after which they will have the possibility to discuss their work with the members of the audience, supported by the multimedia artifacts of their choice.

Workshop (60-90 min)

Workshop proposals should briefly describe the topic and the plan for the workshop. We encourage interactive formats that engage the workshop participants into either creation or sharing of ideas and experiences. Conference organizers can provide basic office supplies, if needed.

Online Juried Art Exhibition

There is a possibility to submit artwork of any kind in a digital format for the curated Online Art Exhibition that will be introduced during the conference. In addition, artists will have the possibility to introduce their work during the conference in a roundtable discussion. 

Proposal submission and deadline

Proposals for the paper presentations, multimedia papers and workshops should be submitted online as 300-500 -word abstracts with the title, using this online FORM. Submissions for the Virtual Art Exhibition should be made using this FORM. We will not consider any submissions sent by email.

Important dates:

• Abstract submission opens: 10 January 2022
• Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2022
• Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2022
• Conference dates: 10-12 August 2022