RCA Symposium: Reportage drawing at the end of the world

Embury, Gary

Abstract

Symposium RCA 2020: Reportage drawing at the end of the world
Reportage drawing has always borne witness to the world’s most consequential events. For most of the 19th century, reportage drawing was the news image and its perception as a piece of objective truth was not widely debated. The photographic image should have rendered the drawn news image obsolete but instead it highlighted its strengths and, as an assemblage of witness accounts, was capable of producing a more expansive visual record than the technologically hampered photograph. With great and fast strides in technology, the photograph out-paced the drawing in speed, reproduction and, in a contextually specific way, objective truth. The reportage drawing persisted but it’s function shifted. No longer was reportage drawing the news image but it captured a spectrum of experience and emotionalised subjects through a range of approaches, reflecting developments in the art world. The photograph drew closer attention to the specific contribution of drawing and practitioners treasure the way that vision itself is tested in the act. The drawings are provocative containers of experience and thought which unfurl in the immediacy of seeing and drawing.

Today reportage drawing is widely practiced and for varying different reasons. This symposium will explore how practitioners see their own methodology as part of the continuum of the practice and how drawing distinguishes itself in this crowded image world. We will discuss how reportage has changed with the times to accommodate VR, animation and subject matter that is particularly suited to drawing. We will explore the notion that reportage drawing is a radical act and the idea of power as it relates to the position of the artist and the meaning imbedded in the effects of the drawing. I will explore the way that my own reportage drawing has provided many insights into the places I have visited and worked, including recent research trips to Nairobi in Kenya. We will discuss the way that drawing can create a space of discussion around subjects which in the photograph, would be too context determined, specific and provocative. The drawing is also provocative but in different ways, through its facture and by being an image created by someone with intent.

At this critical moment, we are at the end of one world and moving towards another. We are in a time of great upheaval and dissatisfaction. What is the role of drawing in that new world and how can the act further evolve and find new venues for dissemination. In a world that looks to technology to solve its problems, how does the humble act of drawing assert itself as a critical lens on a changing world.

• Presentation Conference Type: Keynote
• Conference Name: Royal College of Art Symposium
• Start Date: Jul 21, 2020
• End Date: Jul 21, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 2, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 5, 2022
• Keywords: reportage, drawing, documentary illustration, visual journalism
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10198311
• Related Public URLs: https://www.rca.ac.uk/
• Additional Information: Invited online panel discussion. Introduced by Teal Triggs. Chaired by Louis Netter. Invited panel members, Prof. Mario Minichiello, Jill Gibbon, and Gary Embury.