Workshop EXPERIMENTAL DRAWING: Book as Source: Spontaneous idea collecting by Emily Hunt

In this two-part experimental drawing course, we will cover the book as an eternal source material, providing ideas, concepts and free-thinking models for making spontaneous drawings. When one is stuck for ideas, the book is the place to turn. Emily Hunt will discuss how she has used different books to create bodies of work for exhibition. She will also discuss the wonder of bookstores, the cost of their disappearance and the divinatory potential of Bibliomancy.

On the first day, there will be short introduction to the history and contemporary use of artist books in drawing, printmaking and collage. The lecture will begin by covering surrealist artist books and investigate current contemporary artist books, occasionally referred to as ‘zines’. Producing and selling zines is one of the best ways to create an artwork to be seen by a larger audience, without the restrictions of applying to galleries or installing exhibitions.

Using the library as Berlin Art Institute as a location, we will choose a book at random to focus upon for the two-day course, discussing each book and delving into the ideas around them. As we pass the book on, we will share a piece of information. The drawings and discussion will create connections that will lead to how and why the drawings were created.

On the second day, we will begin with a short presentation of unusual places and sources for inspiration in Berlin. The participants will then collaboratively decide the best drawings from the intensive drawing session the day before. We will install the exhibition together, discussing how images speak to each other. The outcomes will be discussed.

This model of connecting ideas and mind-mapping will also be used to create a visual artist statement, as opposed to a written traditional artist statement. This will be thought over as homework and spoken upon in dialogue in a group tutorial setting, at the end of the second day.

Duration: Dates will be published soon.

Hours: Each day from 10 AM – 12:30 PM

Seats: Max. 20 | Language: English

Fees: The participation fee is €90 per person including material (without accommodation).

The fee is VAT-exempt by the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery Higher Education and Research pursuant to Paragraph 4 No. (21) (a)(bb) UStG (German Value Added Tax Act).

This course offers a comprehensive framework for artists to generate new ideas for their work using printed images as a source of inspiration. Participants will learn techniques for working quickly and intuitively, without judging their work until it is complete. The course also provides guidance on how to use books as a valuable resource for creating complex exhibition proposals, including methods for connecting themes and ideas through careful research and sourcing. In addition to these conceptual skills, the course also serves as an intensive drawing workshop, providing participants with the opportunity to produce a number of finished artworks.

Day 1

10 am – 10.30 am
Presentation of lecture on the topic self-publishing and books as source material for contemporary artists.

10.30 am – 11.00 am
We will begin with choosing a book from the BAI library. We will spend time considering it and then produce 15 drawings quickly and spontaneously that draw out from the book. Be that copies, memories, ideas, connections, thoughts or texts as drawings.

11.00 am – 12.00 pm
We will spend approximately 15-20 mins with each book, swapping it with fellow participants. When the book is handed over, a piece of information that was gleaned from the book will be shared.

12 pm – 12.30 pm
Discuss outcomes and results, and discussion the homework for the next day – the visual artist statement.

Day 2

10 am – 10.30 am
Open discussion on the topic of sourcing ideas, advice to artists, and unusual places in Berlin to gather ideas. Also, a short introduction to artist statements and how to freshen one up to make it interesting to yourself as an artist.

10.30 am – 11.00 am
The night before, the each of the participants needs to think about their artist statement. What key ideas are they most interested in, how do they overlap? In a different way, we will drawing our artist statement, seeing how we can visually talk about our ideas instead of using a formal statement. Discuss outcomes of visual artist statement in a group.

11.00 am – 12.00 pm
We will look through yesterday’s drawing session and choose 3 works out of the 15 lot, for each book. We will discuss the breakthrough moment of ideas and creating and how the best work comes once you are warmed up.
We will then install the work in a large collaborative wall exhibition, curating together the meanings and connections.

12 pm – 12.30 pm
Group exhibition and outcomes discussed.

Emily Hunt (born Sydney, 1981) creates ornamental, figurative ceramics. Her history as a rare-book dealer has informed her encyclopedic approach to her art-making, taking influences from the history of ornament, visionary art, big-ego personalities and scholarly magical texts. She creates world-building installations that reflect automatism in ceramic forms. Her work articulates the concept of the collapse of a macro & micro world view, and walking as a magical tool. From 2017 to 2018, she created large new body of ceramics and etchings for exhibition in Second Sight: Witchcraft, Ritual, Power at UQ Art Museum (AU). Her etchings were installed on alongside Hans Baldung Grien and Albrecht Dürer. The invitation to create work for an exhibition about witchcraft was a turning point in her research and Hunt started to delve into the earliest representations of women as witches. The result has been her on-going fascination into the history of western esotericism, magick and the occult in print history.

More information on the Emily Hunt Website and on Instagram.