Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Lancaster University
Hidden Drawers : a solo exhibition of new drawings
The exhibition was the inaugural exhibition at the Clore Learning Centre at Kensington Palace. The 3-year project leading to exhibition received substantial in kind funding from Kensington and was supported by Lancaster University Small Grant (£4140). The project has also involved delivering drawing workshops at Kensington funded entirely by Historic Royal Palaces (HRP).
HRP comprises the Tower of London, Hampton Court Kew and Kensington Palace and attracts an international audience. Through partnership with the Princes Drawing School (which has studios onsite), it has become a venue for exhibiting drawing.
A series of 8 large (100cm x160cm) drawings were made for exhibition. These were the first substantial and rigorous drawings of these collection artefacts for exhibition at the palace.
The project aimed to provide new insight into the language, forms and processes of drawing and explore its relevance as an interdisciplinary research tool. The dialogue between art and material conservation has been little explored. Research was focussed on parallels between the activities of conservators and those of drawing. Perceiving a mutual preoccupation with preserving fugitive matter in material conservation medicine and archaeology, the project asks what drawing, as an analytical tool of Art, might share with these research areas.
The project entered current debates within the international drawing research community about the relationship of drawing to other disciplines (Garner 2008, Ridley & Rodgers 2010).
Emergent outcomes have been shown in international juried exhibitions: The 5th international Drawing Biennale (2009), touring Melbourne and Victoria, Australia, The Art of Research, Helsinki, Finland (2009). The methodology was delivered as a plenary paper at The Art of Conference in Helsinki, 24-25th November 2009 and is now published in Makela, M. & O’Riley, T. (eds.)The Art of Research Vol II:Processes, Methods, Results (Aalto University, Helsinki; UAL, London) November 2012. ISBN:978-952-60-4863-5.
