Drawing: A Non-Extractive Visual Method? with Dr Sage Brice

Registration to the workshop will be opening soon!

In this interactive workshop we will explore the potential of drawing to facilitate non-extractive research encounters and collaborations, reflecting on the importance of vulnerability as a methodological orientation, ethos, and practice. Artist-geographer Sage Brice will present on her experiences using observational and participatory drawing to conduct fieldwork in research environments shaped by histories of epistemic and material extraction, including settler-colonial, multispecies, and trans geographies. How might drawing offer routes beyond conventional, extractive practices of data collection, classification, and representation, enabling instead a practice of openness to mutually transformative encounter? A short presentation will be followed by a participatory drawing exercise exploring themes of vulnerability and extraction in participants’ own practices. All activities are designed to be supportive and accessible. No specific skills, knowledge or expertise are required.

Suggested reading:

Brice, S. (2024) ‘Critical observational drawing in geography: Towards a methodology for “vulnerable” research’, Progress in Human Geography, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 206–223 [Online]. DOI: 10.1177/03091325231208899.

Sage's Bio:

Sage Brice combines geographical research with artistic practice, using drawing and participatory methods to interrogate the politics of nature, ecology, and social difference. She has written extensively on trans ecologies, observational drawing, and vulnerability as a critical, ontological, and methodological orientation. She is currently Researcher in Residence at The Newbridge Project, Newcastle, and an Honorary Research Fellow in Geography at Durham University. 

Please bring along:

• Coloured drawing pencils (reasonable pigment quality) and/or other assorted drawing materials such as charcoal, pastels etc.
• Sharpener
• Rubber

Paper will be provided. If you have any concerns or questions around the materials required, please contact cvac@durham.ac.uk.