Adopting the concept of dialogical painting, Kaj Osteroth develops the idea of response*able drawing further. Dialogical painting was a long-term project in collaboration with Lydia Hamann, which emerged partly conceptual, but mainly experimental. This process involved the sometimes painful yet equally beautiful experience that working together on a mutual image requires visual translation and strategic visualization in order to not drift off in different visual realms. As the artist duo scribbled, added and copy pasted while developing a final draft, much of the outcome of the painting depended on coincidence, as each of them often came up with unique features, impressions or figurations offering a surprise to themselves and the other. These beautiful coincidences and surprises within visualization techniques should become the source for this project’s communication on paper. The idea of response*able drawing serves as a starting point.
The idea of response*able drawing emerged as aesthetic strategy to foster participation and representation in an era, in which the functioning of contemporary democracy is constantly challenged. We conceive of response*able drawing as a dialogical concept using one of the main tools of visual communication, the drawing. The main focus lies on the response, allowing to take some time to reflect and react to a given matter on paper. Using copying to comprehend and interpretation to find an individual or personal excess point for an intervention in order to make the conversation a more complex and broader one. Considering the fact that images reflect individual knowledge and experiences, jumping into the medium of drawing will add yet another layer of productive (mis-)understanding. If drawing does not aim for best practice or perfect imitation but for ‘as good as’, ‘best possible’ and ‘try and error’, it might open up a space for an ongoing, rather slow communication. Highly experimental, playful, welcoming unexpected developments.
We would like to explore the possibilities of democracy on a visual level in the form of community-based curating. The exhibition project is coined by the idea to critically interrogate theoretical approaches to democracy on a visual level, such as „Demokratie in Präsens“ (Lorey), “Demokratie als Zumutung“ (Heidenreich), Demokratie als Lotterie (Buchstein). We conceive of our curatorial concept as fluid and in motion, as it will thrive on input from a diversity of communities we plan to collaborate with.
Our curatorial concept responds to questions, such as: Is democracy really representing everyone? Are there as many concepts of democracy as there are human beings? Is democracy only a Western concept and only imposed on the Global South? What are other forms of political organisation?
As it is inherent to the operation of democracy that it is constantly questioned and re-thought (Rebentisch), we consider response*able drawing as one step towards the utopian ideal of democratic participation, representation and exhibition-making. How can the practice of drawing pave the way towards more equality in processes of participation? Is drawing inclusive or trapped in academic convictions about the medium as such? Does drawing have to be decolonised before being employed as democratic strategy? And to what extent is a concept of democracy still convincing given that it is so closely interrelated to controversial Enlightenment thinking? Can we work towards a transcultural form of democracy which also references Indigenous forms of political organisation such as the kgotla?