Drawing maps, imagined landscapes and pandemic storytelling
A LivingMaps Webinar
Almost overnight our landscapes were transformed as social distancing and stay at home rules were enforced. Confined to our homes, our imaginations have been our best ally to explore other places real or imagined. Drawing, or perhaps more broadly speaking – mark making, is a deeply subjective tool that we can use to enter into other spaces beyond the here and now, perhaps into memories or imaginations of a possible future or as a form of visually representing emotional states.
Quarantine has highlighted spatial inequalities and poses questions about our socio-political reality, prompting us to think of alternative arrangements. Dreaming about a different world outside can give us comfort but can also help us clarify how we would like the world to be.
This Livingmaps Network meet up focusses on the role of drawing maps as a form of storytelling about places. We will hear from Sol Perez-Martinez and Kimbal Bumstead about drawing as an imaginative act and about the Livingmaps open call during the lockdown - “Dreaming of a post Covid world”. We will hear from some of the people that submitted works and discover some of the different ways in which people have interpreted the theme through drawing and collage. Following this, Joel Seath will discuss children’s interpretations of mapping the pandemic with a project he has been doing with a group of year 5 students.
The Speakers:
Kimbal Bumstead is a visual artist whose works span from abstract paintings to participatory performance art with a key focus on maps and storytelling.
Sol Perez-Martinez is a Latin-American architect, researcher and curator. Her work focuses on public engagement in architecture and the intersection between built environment, pedagogy and politics.
Joel Seath has worked as a playworker for around thirty years, and currently supports the school lives of a group of Yr 5/6 children in Hampshire. He has been variously published in play and playwork literature and is a keen advocate of children’s right to play.