Midlands Critical Thought Conference (MCCT) 06.04.24

Holly Mills delivered a presentation to academics from across the world entitled, ‘An exploration of collaborative drawing: perfectionism, productivity, and wellbeing’, focused on the research she had undertaken with Jessica Payne, Final year Bachelor of Architecture student at NTU (now graduate).

As part of the presentation, the delegates created a collaborative drawing.  For this exercise, they drew together standing on one long piece of paper drawing.  Holly asked them to initially draw one continuous line without taking the pen off the paper moving around the table, and not looking down.  She then asked them to highlight shapes using a thicker pen and add hatching etc to create an abstract drawing.  The focus of the exercise was the process of drawing rather than the outcome.

One of the participants described ‘the act of drawing’ as a ‘performance’ something which I had not considered before.   As Holly presented to academics who were from arts/humanities backgrounds rather than an architectural background, they provided a different perspective on the process of collaborative drawing.

An output of the conference was a publication entitled ‘Productivity, or process – What is the value in making?’, where the presenters for the VCAS conference stream were asked to submit text and a 2 minute drawing.

Holly Mills, Senior Lecturer at NTU