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Mirrored Experiences


Philip Cabau, LIDA-ESAD_CR

Maria Manuela Lopes, i3S-IPP

 

Identity is an unavoidable concept today. It cuts across all areas of knowledge. The term now covers an area that is both collective and individual, having expanded the political, sociological and geographical space that previously characterised it. Since the problematisation of identity is a multifaceted process and subject to constant revision, it is nevertheless under threat from the many ideological positions that claim their own version of the concept. As a result, instead of enriching our experiences, identity jeopardises them.


This divisive and divided space, constantly under threat of becoming a guerrilla battleground, is a familiar portrait for the practice of drawing in the visual arts. This whole complex process, characterised by forms of empathy, confrontation, negotiation and, occasionally, suspension of judgement, constitutes the daily life of a drawing practice. It is in this regard that drawing can make a significant contribution to thinking about identity. A space in which contradictions and differences are treated not as an insurmountable obstacle, but as a positive and potentially fertile contribution. The MID Mirror Identity Drawings project attempts to dramatise this idea.


The project involves participants from diverse backgrounds within the European academia, engaging in drawing workshops that promote their perception of personal and collective identities — levering the medium of drawing as a tool to explore these complexities, both as a methode and a form of inquiry. MID demonstrates the epistemological and transformative potential of drawing research to connect divergent areas within the university. By fostering interdisciplinary collaborations between drawing, social sciences, and higher education students, the project addresses a critical academic and societal challenge.


Within MID, the symposium, the digital platform, and the forthcoming publication, STEM and drawing-based practices allow us to begin addressing the sense of urgency and crisis felt in the pivotal results. These allow us to understand MID as a contribution to the agency of the principle of drawing practice. The initial findings indicate that drawing serves as a powerful tool for exploring identity, allowing participants to unveil aspects of their identities that are difficult to articulate verbally, and presenting through the emerging identity of the drawings themselves what is not visible—the entanglement of the mirrored existence of identity in a drawing practice.


The notion of identity is multifaceted, fluid, and continuously evolving. Artists' identities are reflected and produced in and through their artworks, with the personal invested in their drawings and mirrored in the subject. In today's globalized society, identity is influenced and constructed by a multitude of factors and is provisional. It is precisely because identity is such a problematic, structuring, complex, and controversial subject that it has become, in an era of global communication and information, so omnipresent and relevant.


MID aims to create a reflective tool (including the drawing workshops syllabus, a digital public archive, an interactive platform, and a publication) that supports individuals in understanding, exploring and representing their identities in a contemporary, interconnected world.

 

Keywords: Identity, Drawing, Interdisciplinary, Pedagogy, Social Sciences


Biography
Philip Cabau is Senior Lecturer at ESAD.CR / Polytechnic of Leiria and a researcher in LIDA – Laboratório de Investigação em Design e Arte. He authored several books and essays on Drawing, among other titles: Design on Drawing (Design pelo Desenho, FCA Design, 2011) and Drawing Devices (O Dispositivo Desenho, A prática do Desenho no ensino artístico contemporâneo (Edições ESAD.cr/IPL, 2012). He has also developed, as an architect, several projects in the areas of architecture, scenography, exhibition design and furniture. He currently coordinates the European project MID - Mirror Identity Drawings, included in an UNESCO Chair.


Maria Manuela Lopes is a Visual Artist with inter/transdisciplinary practice and Senior Lecturer of Visual Arts at ESE-Polytechnic of Porto and researcher at i3S, ID+; InED ESE-PP. PhD in New Media Fine Arts University of Brighton and MA Goldsmiths College London. She has participated and coordinated several artistic research projects such as Hybrid Lab Network. Currently she is a researcher of European project MID - Mirror Identity Drawings (ESAD CR/ UNESCO Chair); Drawing Across University Borders (I2ADS, i3S); Human Diversity Along the Magalhães Circumnavigation Space: genetics, history and culture (IPATIMUP/UP). She is Deputy Director of artistic residencies: Ectopia and Cultivamos Cultura. Belongs to the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Music “Aquiles Delle Vigne”, organizes international festivals, multidisciplinary art/academy events.