Nature Drawing Nature, 2nd Seminar

Situated Drawing - Cartographies of Practice
Online, April 2 and 3, Thursday/Friday, 2026

Calls are now open
Proceedings are to be published in:
Black Book Drawing and Sketching journal

Submission deadlines:
Abstract until the end of February, full paper until the end of March.

Submissions should be made through the BBDS journal publishing platform.
Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.

The 2026 thematic issues builds on the NDN – Nature Drawing Nature (2025 seminar and publication).

Situated Drawing: Practice, Place, and Conditions
for Black Book Drawing and Sketching journal (Vol.7, N1)

This thematic issue focus on how, where, and under what conditions drawing takes place. Rather than treating drawing as a neutral act, the issue foregrounds drawing as a situated and embodied practice, shaped by environment, context, and constraint.

We invite contributions that explore drawing as a form of thinking-with place—responsive to climate, terrain, temporality, access, tools, bodies, sensory experience, and institutional or material limits. Drawing is approached not simply as representation, but as an activity embedded in specific conditions of practice.

The issue welcomes practice-based research, critical reflections, visual essays, and hybrid contributions, engaging with field drawing, site-specific practice, environmental humanities, walking and durational practices, disability studies, and embodied methodologies.

Key questions include:
- How do place, weather, duration, or constraint shape drawing practices?
- What does it mean to draw from within an environment rather than about it?
- How does drawing outside the studio alter methods, meanings, and outcomes?

This issue aims to gather a focused collection of contributions that position drawing as an attentive, situated practice, producing knowledge through presence, condition, and engagement with place.

Cartographies of Practice: Drawing, Mapping, and Situated Knowledge
for Black Book Drawing and Sketching journal (Vol.7, N2)

This thematic issue invites contributions that explore place- and sense-based observational drawing as a form of knowledge-making. Drawing is approached as a way of mapping spatial, emotional, ecological, and embodied experiences—producing insights that extend beyond conventional cartography or data visualization.

We welcome practice-based and theoretical contributions that consider drawing as a tool for observing, registering, and thinking through place. The issue encourages cross-disciplinary perspectives, including geography, architecture, environmental studies, and the sciences, while expanding the scope of nature drawing toward a broader understanding of place and experience.

Contributors are invited to experiment with visual essays, hybrid formats, and process-driven work, as well as approaches that engage drawing as an active, situated method rather than a representational outcome.

Key questions include:
- How can drawing function as a form of mapping beyond maps?
- What kinds of knowledge emerge through observational and sensory drawing?
- How can drawing register memory, experience, or presence in place?

The issue aims to foreground drawing as an exploratory, relational practice that produces knowledge through observation, movement, and engagement with the world.


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Submissions should be made through the BBDS journal publishing platform.
Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.

Credits: The organization of the NDN seminar is possible with the support of Sara Schneckloth and Kiera O'Toole. Images: Kiera O Toole, ‘Drawing Wonder’ III, detail, chalk, algae and sea water on concrete structure, Dunmoran Strand, Sligo, Ireland, 27th July 2019; Sara Schneckloth, Charting the Badlands - Maps and Sites Ink, earth pigments, colored pencil, wax on Yupo, 2018. Series I, detail.