Body, Space, Place in Collective and Collaborative Drawing : Drawing Conversations II

Gorrill, Helen (2020) Body, Space, Place in Collective and Collaborative Drawing : Drawing Conversations II. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527541962

Abstract

This book builds upon the strengths of our first edited edition Collective and Collaborative Drawing in Contemporary Practice: Drawing Conversations (Journeaux & Gorrill) published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in December 2017. We have brought in a third editor (a dance practitioner and academic, Sara Reed) to further strengthen the subject matter in the wider field. Whilst both collective and collaborative drawing is being widely explored internationally, both within and beyond educational institutions, there is surprising little serious research published on the topic. It was because we saw this gap in the market that we organized the second international Drawing Conversations Symposium in December 2017. This event drew another strong and global response, and brought together a wide range of participants including: academics, artists, dancers, researchers, designers, architects and doctoral students. The aim of the research is to consider what happens, and how, when people draw together either in the form of a collaboration, or through a collective process. The researchers aim to establish the field of collective and collaborative drawing as distinct from the types of drawing undertaken by artists, designers, and architects within a professional context. The research considers interrelationships of drawing, body, space and place. At the heart of this will be the body acting as the conduit between interior and exterior, private and public. Drawing in this sense can therefore be elastic in definition, from two-dimensional mark making, to more spatial languages that might involve capturing movement, three-dimensional drawing, or indeed understanding the processes of making the movement, mark or gesture. How do these gestures make meaning? What impulses from a particular space or place impelled the drawing? What is the relationship of the final work to a space or place?