From the ground up: Drawing on phenomenology

Abstract

To draw on something means to allow yourself to be informed by and to heed the clues, suggestions and directions emanating from another source. The aim of this article is to describe how walking, as an embodied form of visual and performative practice, might open up opportunities and avenues for an expanded drawing approach. The first step is to plant one’s feet on the ground and let yourself be drawn to the terrain. The whole experience emerges from the terrain and thus it can be considered as drawing from the ground up. This article discusses and considers how un/planned perambulations can be transformed into a drawing(-out) tool that extends the meaning of the practice to comprise multimodal extrapolations and a diverse range of media. The eclectic approaches discussed in this article draw heavily on phenomenology and bear traces of a grounded theory that borrows from deep mapping combined with aspects of Dasein, which can be discerned throughout the process. The discussion explores the wider meaning of drawing as a form of seeing and making in response to place and time, while it attempts to push drawing beyond the limits imposed by a restricted flat surface.