RETRACING: PORTRAITS, BODY STUDIES & SPATIAL PROFILES

we are loved

how we remember our past
influences our present
and the possibilities of the
futures that we can imagine

it is necessary that we
exercise our power
to reconfigure our
memories and re-member

that we are loved
that we belong
and that we create
ourselves and our world

Siddharth Singh

INTENT

VSR, scheduled as the beginning of each day, is intended as exercises in centering ourselves: bringing our mind & body together through an undisturbed engagement of an hour in sketching/ drawing and making models. This brief focuses on drawing and re-membering who we were as nine year olds and what our family and loved ones were like about a decade ago.

TEACHING-LEARNING STRATEGIES

All drawings for the three exercises outlined within the scheduled fortnight-long brief will depend on photographs from past as source. Body Studies & Body Profiles are recording of bodies’ postures & gesture in action & relaxation. Portraits are impressions & observations of faces. Spatial Profiles are line drawings of rooms where the photographs were taken.

Students need to create at least one iteration of each exercise during the course of a week. The process will be interspersed with conversations with peers during group interaction through the week and tutor comments on G.Classroom. Reiterations need to incorporate feedback and insights from group discussions and tutors.

Work created for the scheduled hour everyday is to be submitted as PDF as well as posted on the assigned Miro board by 0930 hrs on the same day – before the studio session with the tutors’ begins

Regular update of the Reflective Blog is a mandatory requirement of the studio. You may choose to blog daily or weekly or with respect to briefs or exercises; however, stick to a chosen schedule for at least 4 weeks or through a module.

Reference outputs shared in the brief are only suggestive.

EXERCISES & ASSESSMENT ELEMENTS or DELIVERABLES

Bring out family and school photographs from digital archives and photo-albums from a time when you were around 9 or 10 years old.

1. PORTRAITS
Format: A3; Nos.: 4; Medium: (1 – Color, 1 – Monochromatic and an iteration or two of each)
Draw portraits of your family members, co-habitants, frequently visiting fond relatives and yourself (2 nos. minimum). Observe and attempt to represent the following:
a. features, shadows & texture
b. expression & character
While one approach is to draw what you see here and now, another way is to remember and represent the image or impression you carried of yourself and others you are drawing; attempt both.

2. BODY- STUDIES
Format: A3; Nos.: 3; Medium: Monochromatic
From photographs, draw in quick studies your family members, cohabitants and yourself in diverse gestures, postures, stances and bodily dispositions while engaged in daily chores such gazing at the phone, reading, cooking, eating cleaning, conversing etc. and, as is likely to be found in photographs, posing. The objects and furniture, if essential to your composition, need to be drawn in minimum outlines without details.

3. Spatial- Profiles
Format: A3; Nos.: 2 with at least 4 drawings on each sheet; Medium: Line Drawing
From the photographs of your childhood draw the profiles (defining lines) of the rooms & spaces where the pictures were taken in minimum detail – edges & corners, door & window outlines, plinths etc. Show furniture as simple profiles of cubes, cuboids etc. You may trace over the photographs to extract the profile or draw from observation, but use you memory & imagination to complete the room beyond what the photograph is showing. Show the people in the picture also in outer profiles. Make your collection of profiles as diverse as possible.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The exercises defined in this brief are intended to elicit responses to the questions:
+ What is the relationship between body, memory, emotion and space?

Drawing and model making are skills that are not only essential to the architects’ tools of communication, but they are also vital to inculcating patience and presence necessary for observation and inhabitation.

Besides documenting the processes and recording its highs & lows, it’s necessary to reflect on these aspects and note the consequent deliberations in the Studio Blog.