A drawing hangs in the middle

This exposition is based on a project that explored observation of a crossroad through drawings. The drawings are made from the same place on a sidewalk observing the same square over 30 days. During this process, I tried to explore how a continuous observation of a space and the outcome of the process evokes a certain sense of connectedness and reflexive dialogue with the place and its elements, visible and invisible. This artistic research contemplates the idea of “too early, too late” through the process of drawing where the drawing emerges in the moment, while can be anticipated early and interpreted in hindsight. My exposition considers the act of drawing as an embodied form of recording, as opposed to drawing as an image-making (representational) exercise. Invariably, this process of drawing becomes an engagement with the existing spatial elements, arrangements, their interconnections and importantly, with the self that is observing. Along with the external engagement and a dialogue with the space, the moment of drawing is both the outcome of observation and a connection in the moment of making it. This tension between immediacy in the moment of drawing and the reflectivity in the process of meaning-making of the drawings creates a parallel relationship between an immediate present and the immediate past. The empty space on the surface before drawing becomes a potential space to record moments from the space around and to remember the moments passing by. The work, in the form of drawings of various sizes, aspires to present the experience of, and an engagement with, the space. It also gives us an opportunity to find critical moments in the records of time, memory, and space. The drawing as an outcome hangs in the middle, between the moment of record and moment of being.