This paper is situated within Arts Education research and forms part of an ongoing doctoral research project in Art Education. It is conceived as a critical literature review, informed by feminist, decolonial, and post-structuralist perspectives, articulated with the visual analysis of curricular materials used in Visual Arts Education.

The study examines how hegemonic regimes of visibility, rooted in the Eurocentric and colonial construction of Art History, shape Visual Arts Education curricula. Drawing on Foucauldian perspectives on discourse and power (Foucault, 1971), the curriculum is approached as a dispositif that organises what can be seen and legitimised as artistic knowledge. The empirical focus lies in the analysis of the visual itineraries of a Visual Arts Education textbook used in lower secondary education in Portugal, understood as a curricular and visual technology that stabilises particular artistic imaginaries while marginalising others.

The guiding research question is:
How do hegemonic regimes of visibility operate within Visual Arts Education curricula, and how can pedagogical practice contribute to their critical interrogation and dismantling?

Rather than framing curricular inequality as a problem of representational absence, this research approaches it as a structural and epistemological issue. From a decolonial perspective, the dominance of European art historical narratives is analysed as an effect of the coloniality of knowledge (Quijano, 2000), reinforced by regimes of whiteness that operate invisibly within visual culture and education (Kilomba, 2019; Mirzoeff, 2023).

The theoretical framework brings together decolonial theory, feminist epistemologies, critical Arts Education studies, and visual culture research. Knowledge is understood as situated and implicated rather than neutral (Haraway, 1991, 2016), and arts curricula are approached as politically and institutionally structured rather than inherently emancipatory (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013; Mörsch, 2011).

It is important to emphasise that the practical dimension of this project, developed through the author’s work as a Visual Arts teacher, will be carried out throughout the doctoral research process and does not yet constitute a completed empirical field. Accordingly, this paper does not present final pedagogical results, but seeks to situate the problem of curriculum decolonisation through the identification and analysis of hegemonic regimes of visibility.

The specific contribution of this article lies in the analytical verification of the research problem, based on the visual analysis of the textbook’s image itineraries. This analysis reveals the persistence of an artistic imaginary that is predominantly male, white, and Eurocentric, inherited from the historical construction of Art History as a canonical and linear narrative. This masculine canon is understood as a performative and institutional construction rather than a neutral inheritance (Butler, 1990).

The concept of the atlas is introduced not as a finished pedagogical model, but as a relational epistemological and pedagogical strategy currently under development within the author’s teaching practice. Conceived in opposition to linear art historical narratives, the atlas operates through cross-temporal and non-hierarchical image constellations, supporting forms of critical spectatorship that recognise learners as active interpreters (Rancière, 2010).

Although situated in Portugal, the curricular structures analysed are widely shared across European Visual Arts Education systems, making the study relevant to broader debates within ECER Network 29 on curriculum, knowledge production, and decolonisation.

The study adopts a qualitative, practice-based research approach, combining critical literature review, curriculum analysis, visual methodologies, and reflexive inquiry. Teaching practice is understood as a space of knowledge production within the broader doctoral research project. A central empirical component consists of the systematic visual analysis of a Visual Arts Education textbook. Following critical visual methodologies (Rose, 2016), the analysis focuses on image selection and repetition, historical sequencing, thematic organisation, and classificatory distinctions between art, culture, and ethnography, enabling the identification of hegemonic regimes of visibility embedded in curricular materials. This analysis is articulated with a practice-based pedagogical inquiry understood as a field in construction throughout the doctoral research. Pedagogical interventions inspired by the concept of the atlas are discussed as a methodological horizon, rather than as consolidated empirical results. Empirical materials include the textbook, curricular documents, visual analysis notes, and the researcher’s reflective journals. Reflexivity is a core methodological principle, with the positionality of the teacher-researcher explicitly acknowledged in line with feminist and decolonial epistemologies (Haraway, 1991; Vergès, 2019).

The paper argues that Visual Arts Education curricula are structured by hegemonic regimes of visibility that naturalise Eurocentric, gendered, and colonial conceptions of art and history. These regimes operate through classificatory practices that distinguish art from culture and contemporaneity from tradition. The analysis of the textbook’s visual itineraries provides empirical verification of the persistence of a predominantly male, white, and Eurocentric artistic imaginary, revealing the curriculum as an active site of hegemonic visual production. The study shows that approaches focused solely on inclusion or diversity are insufficient when they fail to interrogate the epistemological foundations of the curriculum (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013). By positioning pedagogical practice as a field of investigation in construction, the paper conceptualises curriculum decolonisation as a critical, situated, and longitudinal process. Its contribution lies in clarifying the problem and establishing a critical foundation for subsequent practice-based inquiry within the doctoral research.

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