Paper short abstract:

This paper questions the role of drawing in understanding the world around us. Often derided as a visual medium, it can also be argued that drawing is an alternative form of knowledge, but what kinds of understanding are actually produced?

Paper long abstract:

This paper questions the role which drawing has in the production of knowledge. As one of many inscriptive practices, drawing has several components such as pictorial, instructive, descriptive, geometric or projective.

Key to understanding any drawing is an understanding of the underlying convention. Every form of graphic representation, however abstract or pictorial has rules which can be understood both by practitioners and viewers. It is this component of drawing which challenges the claims to knowledge made, and which must be interrogated in order to reinstate the place of drawing in our depictions of social life-worlds.

This paper will describe urban marketplaces in Seoul using three key drawing conventions: plan, section, and axonometric. What can be learnt about these vibrant socially constructed places, under threat of gentrification by the deceptively simple act of drawing them?