“Thought is impossible without an image.”

–Aristotle, On Memory and Reminiscence (450a)

A Call for Drawings presents drawings made by artists, scientists, and other practitioners within the context of an interdisciplinary research project that investigates the role of visual thinking and visualization in cognitive and creative processes. The exhibition is the outcome of a procedure analogous to the practice in the academic world of “a call for papers,” in which knowledge and research are both presented and shared. The exhibition is inaugurated by Drawing Conclusions, a symposium with international artists and scholars convened on this subject of the role of visual thinking in knowledge production.

In scientific and technological disciplines, sketches, maps, drafts, diagrams, and other kinds of drawings are essential to the understanding of problems and the communication of thoughts towards their solutions. When probing into the unknown, drawing is an ideal tool. In making things present, drawing is thinking, pointing, it is a mode of inquiry. Drawing represents the seen and presents the unseen, the known and the unknown.

If artists, scientists, and other practitioners share drawing as a methodology, might then we find a common ground between diverse fields of practice? Might we also discover correspondences between the creative processes in different fields of activity? Could we, this way, mutualize the knowledges and collaborate in more genuine ways in envisioning collectivity and solidarity between them?

For A Call for Drawings, scientists, artists, architects, musicians, football coaches, carpenters, chefs, and other professionals each sent two drawings: first, a drawing made to try to understand a problem and possibly gesture towards a solution; the second submission is a drawing made to articulate the problem to another person, marking the direction or import of what is discovered.

The exhibition is inaugurated by Drawing Conclusions, a symposium to discuss and evaluate the outcomes of the eponymous interdisciplinary project. With a focus on the meaning of drawings for various forms of knowledge production it considers: How do drawings relate to visual thinking? What role do they play in creative and cognitive processes? And what is the significance of drawings when solving problems and communicating possible solutions?

A Call for Drawings is a project initiated and organized by Klaas Hoek. He is core-tutor at MaHKU MA Fine Art, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht and lecturer, Head of Print at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL London. Hoek introduced the A Call for Drawings project with the symposium Lines of Thought at the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW), on 2 February 2015

The exhibition design is made by: Dongyoung Lee.

Contributors to the symposium include:

Ansuya Blom, Natasha Ginwala, Mel Gooding, Klaas Hoek, Vincent Icke, Deanna Petherbridge, Falke Pisano, Joke Robaard, Christel Vesters , and Kitty Zijlmans.

With keynote lectures by:

Will Alsop, Jim Anderson, Bernard Burgoyne, John Hilliard, Vincent Icke, Bruce McLean en Rick van der Ploeg.[NvdM/B2]

The exhibition presents contributions by:

Pieter Adriaans, Gemma Anderson, Ruben Aubrecht, Jack Bangerter, Koštana Banović, Andrew Barber, Peter Baren, Sara Berman, Maura Biava, Ansuya Blom, Peter Bowyer, Paul Buchanan, Natalia Calderon, Hyunju Chung, Alexander Costello, Penny Demertzi, Claire Dorsett, Ronit Eden, Stephen Farthing, Emma Febvre-Richards, Helen Frik, Nikolaus Gansterer, Mikel van Gelderen, Lotte van Geijn & Sue van Geijn, Maximilian Goldfarb, Niels Goos, Klaas van Gorkum, David Griffin, Geoffrey Harrison, Jutta Herden, Helena Hernandez, Edward Hillel, Hiroomi Horiuchi, Anna Ioannidi, Eun-Hyung Kim, Jae-Kyung Kim, Yoonhee Kim, Andreas Kopp, Nektaria Lampitsi, Heleen Langkamp, Elvira Mambetisaeva, Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen, Valle Medina & Benjamin Reynolds, Alan Montgomery, Elena Nemkova, Emanuele Ortoleva, Reinoud Oudshoorn, Dusko Pavlovic, Alejandro Ramirez, Joke Robaard & Hajo de Reijger, Mark Rutkoski, Kristin Sigurdardottir, Floris Solleveld, Marina Stavrou, Ivan Suletic, Marianne Theunissen, David Tomas, Nathan Thompson, Raul Valverde, Hèctor Vargas, Vitalist Cuisine, Ivana Wingham, Tessa Whitehead & Heino Schmid, and Erin Woodbrey.