Visual March was introduced in the beginning as an educational tool. It was initiated in order to allow the students of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts to participate in an artistic process that will connect them to the art issues and art practitioners beyond the area of Florina where they work It was also initiated as a way that would create venues of social involvement of the Department with the environment around it. Gradually Visual March is transformed into a process that is mainly artistic where art practitioners, theorists, historians, students meet every year and work on a contemporary subject. A thematic is introduced every year and those who want to participate (students and artists) are elaborating it and are submitting  proposals to the Artistic Committee. Those who are selected arrive in the area at the end of June and realise their project or they present their papers.

In order to fulfil the above which method of art practice would be introduced in order to develop the Visual March project. There is a number of different interpretations of research in relationship to art practice one of which is most relevant to the ‘Visual March project', namely the one termed ‘critical practice'. This type of research emerged as a means of both developing new innovative ways of working and as a means of negotiating new relationships with audience through project-based initiatives, both within and outside conventions of exhibiting. The motive underpinning these types of project, as most theorists address, is to challenge the profession to adopt fresh approaches to creativity, which are critical and experimental in nature. In such way, critical issues are identified, framed and modelled within projects through a self conscious and negotiated process.

Critical practice mirrors personal research in as far as it contributes to the subject of art practice through the activities of individual practitioners, who are engaged with that subject matter in discrete projects, and mirrors formal research in locating the research activity within a clearly articulated critical and contextual framework.  Critical practice allows the Visual March project to obtain an academic character that helps the participating students to be trained in a way that will allow them to develop both technical and conceptual skills. Finally Critical practice can introduce a different artistic practice than the one that prevails nowadays; Critical practice is shaping artists that are able to elaborate on their ideas and realise them in an efficient way. Critical practice is a tool that will allow Visual March to initiate innovative ideas and create interesting results.

The experience of the landscape, the effort to create an actual work, in conjunction with Critical practice bridges theory to practice, the academic institution to society. The march in the mountains of the area or across the lakes in conjunction with the realisation of artwork and the conference create a complete artistic and cultural experience.