Seeing, feeling and creating 'future imaginaries' within and through the visual arts

Visual arts are rich with the possibility for expression about everyday life and exploring imaginaries beyond the lived experience. The potential and delights of art-making are endless, beautiful and magical. As well as the processes of making art, which are so powerful and important in and of themselves, appreciating artworks of our own and others, and exploring and revisiting art has so many possibilities for all children in learning, sharing, and further developing artistic creativity and beyond. The visual art includes a myriad of different art forms such as painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and digital arts. This chapter explores art-making and appreciation with an emphasis on the many ways in which we can approach visual art to make it inclusive and relevant for children in all their diversities. I also consider some of the powerful possibilities for communicating within and through visual arts. As Diment and Hobbs (2014) argue, visual art is important in developing children's communication, problem-solving, social and emotional skills, as well as motor control, creativity and self-expression.