Thank you for attending our two-day seminar; we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. The relations between presentations and the immense disciplinary reach give us energy and confidence.
The video recordings are now available you can access them via these direct links:
April 2: https://youtu.be/WA7tMUJA9dk
April 3: https://youtu.be/btUyp4WKj7g
Proceedings are to be published in:
Black Book Drawing and Sketching journal
Submission deadlines:
Full paper until the end of MAY 2026 (new date).
Publication of the Issue: September 2026.
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.
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.
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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.
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Thank you for attending our two-day seminar; we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. The relations between presentations and the immense disciplinary reach give us energy and confidence.
The video recordings of the Nature Drawing Nature 2nd Seminar: Situated Drawing - Cartographies of Practice are now available you can access them via these direct links:
April 2: https://youtu.be/WA7tMUJA9dk
April 3: https://youtu.be/btUyp4WKj7g
The texts produced and presented were incredibly well-written and meaningful. Submitting your full papers, texts, or visual essays to the seminar’s associated journal (BBDS - Black Book Drawing and Sketching) will allow for a second peer-review phase and ensure your work is archived in a high-standard, searchable academic format.
We remind you that you can send us your submission until the end of May 2026. Submissions should be made through the BBDS journal platform. Please specify the thematic call you are applying to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.
Regarding Article Processing Charges (APCs), we will analyze each case individually (after each submission is approved for publication). APCs should be paid by institutions rather than authors directly (avoiding the common perversion of Open Access publishing). We can waive these charges when justified, provided that all institutional support options have been explored.
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FINAL PROGRAM
April 2 - Thursday
- 16h30 to 19h25 (UTC - Lisbon time)
- 20 min each presentation
Lovise Søyland; Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education, University of South-Eastern Norway
Drawing with the forest: An Embodied and Material Encounter with time and place
Anthi Kosma, Aikaterini Tsevdou, Aggeliki Papanikolaou, Demetra Papaspyrou ;independent researchers, Greece
Entangled Naturalisms: Drawing nature beyond media.
Ilga Leimanis; University of the Arts London, United Kingdom
Thinking Through Drawing in Nature: Accessing the bloom space of potential
- 20 min QA/ Dialogue
- 15 min Tea break
Kelly Cumberland; University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Situated Drawing: Cartographies of Practice
Joanna Leah; Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Drawing Out Hilbre: Tidal Event-Scores Between the Cartographic and the Choreographic
Fiona Harrisson; School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, Australia
Plant Thinking: enlivening knowing through drawing in-the-field
- 20 min QA/ Dialogue
- closing remarks
- 16h30 to 19h25 (UTC - Lisbon time)
- 20 min each presentation
Louise O’Boyle; Ulster University, United Kingdom
Drawing as Situated Artist Research in Place and Relation
Jill R. Baker; Visual Artist and Faculty, Linn Benton Community College, United States of America
Paper in the Floodplain: and other instructions for drawing
Christina Kirchinger; independent researcher, Germany
The Constraint as Impulse
- 20 min QA/ Dialogue
- 15 min Tea break
Amir Hariri; independent researcher, United States of America
Lines in Exile: Toward a Phenomenology of Situated Mark Making
David LeRue, Keyiana Marques, Sa Eun Song; Concordia University, Canada
Can Close Looking Reveal the Workings of the World? Drawing, Geography, and Place-Based Practice
Chad Connery; University of Calgary, Canada
Anca Matyiku; University of Cincinnati, United States of America
Adjective Constructions: Stratigraphic Drawing and Projective Dis/placement
- 20 min QA/ Dialogue
- closing remarks
