The Centre for Visual Methodologies and Social Change is a research, teaching and community outreach centre located at the Edgewood Campus in the School of Language, Literacies and Media Education, in the Faculty of Education of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

It was established in 2004 through two research grants - a UKZN Competitive Grant, Seeing for ourselves: Working with youth on HIV/AIDS prevention through participatory visual and arts-based methodologies, which made it possible to purchase video cameras, digital cameras and editing suites, and the NRF grant, Learning together: Towards an integrated participatory approach to youth, gender and HIV/AIDS interventions in rural KwaZulu-Natal Schools, which focused on community-based HIV education and prevention research in a rural KZN district, and involved teachers, community health care workers and learners.

The Centre aims to promote visual methodologies as research for social change in Southern Africa, through a cultural production approach not only in the context of teacher development, but also within community outreach. Based on our work we see a strong empowerment component that we would like to study further as part of the process of democratizing research through the use of visual modes of inquiry and representation.