Conveners: Drawing Research Group Loughborough University

DRN2023: Drawing in Relation – call for paper presentations
Deadline: Friday 9th December 2022

This series of online events aims to explore the notion of drawing in relation. With this title we suggest that drawing can be considered relational; it is a means by which relations and the conditions through which they are created, maintained, and broken can be investigated. Connections are made between divisible surfaces, relations are engendered. Rather than being isolated, these surfaces exist in relation to their milieus. In this way relations propagate and disseminate outwards. Simultaneously relations are brought inwards, what is exterior and separable to the drawing act is interiorised; the milieu makes its way onto the page—drawing in relation. To draw is to make contact, to touch and be touched, and yet there is discontinuity, contact is severed, and surfaces break away.

Each session of presented papers aims to provide a space for discussion, dissemination, and the exchange of knowledge. With the intention of promoting fertile interactions that explore this conceptually rich terrain, we suggest the following as starting points and as possible themes, prompts and provocations:

• How can drawing investigate relations of affect, agency, and materiality?
• In what ways can apparatuses and other forms of technical mediation hinder, bridge, connect, or relate in drawing practices?
• How can drawing explore interdisciplinarity and the sharing and extension of knowledge?
• In what ways can drawing practices explore and/or transgress boundaries of difference between humans or other lifeforms?
• How can drawing connect to practices of care?
• How can drawing express our relationship to ourselves?

Each event will take the form of 2/3 presentations, which address the call’s theme, followed by a Q&A session. We would like to invite proposals for a 20-minute presentation which addresses the theme from practitioners, theorists, and practitioner-researchers. To apply please submit one word .docx document, labelled as follows: surname.forename.presentation and include the following:
· 250-word abstract detailing the research question and proposed presentation
· 50-word biography

Deadline Friday 9th December 2022

Submission link