The concept of visual motif refers to an iconographic pattern of cultural representation that is transmitted and reinterpreted through the history of images and that fosters narrative and emotional recognition. This project draws upon the premise that the images that embody representations of power in the media and other instances of the public sphere are articulated through visual motifs. The hypothesis is that there is an organised and systematisable set of motifs to represent common situations in the evolution of public life, such as presidential investiture, corporate bankruptcy, or the occupation of a public square.

Over the last five years, the visual construction of the public sphere has undergone a radical transformation around four essential vectors: the pandemic, awareness of climate change, the rearticulation of gender identities, and racial conflicts. Based on the study of these vectors, the project aims to analyse the visual motifs within the mutation experienced by the representations of power in the public sphere, through images disseminated in the press, digital media, and television news in Spain between 2017 and 2021. In this sense, the pandemic caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus has shown a collective tragedy without the image of a Pietà capable of condensing the pain of the community. Likewise, the iconography that represents climate change has shifted from images of accumulations of plastic to infographics, or #FridaysforFuture demonstrations.

Firstly, we will identify the most prevalent visual motifs in the Spanish media to represent the most significant events on the media agenda around the four vectors aforementioned, to map the transformation experienced by the iconography of the public sphere between 2017 and 2021. Secondly, we will investigate the production processes of creation and selection of images that affect the representation of power and its return to fiction. To this end, we will conduct interviews with professionals from the media, social networks, corporate communication, film, and television. Thirdly, we will analyse the appropriation and dissemination of visual motifs by citizens through social networks, as a means of fostering participatory culture in the contemporary public sphere. 

The project aims to raise awareness among citizens and professionals about the use of expressive patterns in images in the public sphere. To this end, it includes the construction of an online archive of visual motifs, the design and production of two nanoMOOCS, an exhibition, a book, and an educational toolkit. This project understands the public sphere as an area of continuous negotiation of images and meanings between institutions, media, professionals, and citizens, and foregrounds the specificity of the visual as a vehicle for the representation of power, its critique, and the transformations of the present.