session 5
Drawings as Sites, Sites of Drawing
by Sayan Skandarajah
Drawings as Sites, Sites of Drawing
by Sayan Skandarajahon Friday, 30th August 2024
at 6:00 pm IST
Zoom Link
This talk engages with the role of architectural representation in seventeenth-century screen paintings of Kyoto, Japan, aiming to test and examine the implied spaces of the city that were defined by the original artists. Using the process of drawing as a critical instrument to further interrogate these spatial devices, my design-led approach exposes manipulations of space as opportunities to reconsider and inhabit the voyeuristic gaze in the imagination of the city. Translated as “Scenes in and around Kyoto”, the Rakuchu Rakugai zu folding screens use oblique aerial parallel projection to create portrayals of Kyoto that are at the same time maps, planning documents and works of art. The research outlines how the use of representation in these screens disrupts the Eurocentric narrative of truth, objectivity and rationality that had been attributed to architectural representation at the time, and instead employs a more abstract, temporal and wandering gaze charged with political motivation. By learning from its manipulation of drawing convention to convey ideas of place, identity and memory, I will outline an original set of practice-led research that has not only drawn from but also contributed to architecture and contemporary artistic practice.
ABOUT
Sayan Skandarajah is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Reading, specialising in drawing-led research and critical design processes. Alongside his role in leading design studio and modules of visual communication at Reading, his LAHP funded PhD research, at The Bartlett School of Architecture feeds into his own reflective practice. His work scrutinises the architectural design process and sets out original pathways to considering acts of drawing, tracing and cartographic projection as a means of speculative world-building.
He is co-curator of the Cartographies of the Imagination project, an ongoing exploration into map-making, drawing and the mind’s eye. Sayan holds an MArch degree in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and an MA (Hons) degree in Architectural Design from the University of Edinburgh.
This is an online lecture series, supported by the Urban Centre Mumbai. It is free and open to everyone across the world.
