FROM ART TO ECONOMY AND BACK: Initial steps towards the understanding of resonance, affect and love in nomadic systems through the case study of Lisbon Drawing Club

This text proposes an initial approach to the artistic research on my PhD studies, as I initiate its first year. The wish to dedicate the next years of my path towards PhD studies arise from 10 years of research and experience in economics, where I worked and lived in what can be considered a capitalistic framework, followed by 10 years of research and experience in the art field. Through experiencing these two alternate realities I was not only able to develop different bodies of knowledge and sets of skills, but I was also able to empirically observe and experience - in myself and the surrounding communities - the impact of the economic/relational systems in our emotional landscape. My current PD studies aim to study the relation between art and economy, from the perspective of love. In the wider research landscape, the study of resonance and affect is planned in order to inform the initial questions towards the understanding of the connections between art and economy.

There is no common agreement about a definition of economy and economies (Backhouse & Medema, 2009). It can be perceived a system of relations, practices and negotiations. Following the definition of community economies, economy refers to the ongoing negotiation of human and nonhuman ecological relations of sustenance. In this amplified vision, the term not only applies to capitalist enterprises, but also other to economies such as collective currency, imagination, oral tradition or gift economies, as described in the Diverse Economies Iceberg by Community Economies Collective. Considering these diverse forms of economies, one can pose the following questions: How does the way we feel affect the formation of economies, and how do economies make us feel? Considering economies as relational systems, can we also understand them as a forms of relational art, expanding beyond the concept proposed by Nicolas Bourriaud (1998)? And, finally, how can we apply the theory of resonance as in initial step towards understanding relationality in art/economy systems?

In order to apply these questions, practical and artistic research will comprise the use of existing practices including mapping, drawing, dialogue, community organizing, curating and complementary art forms that will emerge in the context of the work. I intend to approach communities and projects where work was already done in the co-creation of art/love systems, so they can be developed in continuity. The framework for the choice of these communities and planned artistic research will be both autoethnographic[1] – as my own story and affects are woven into these communities – and desire-based[2] – as I intend to approach communities tuned to their complexity, desires, and capability of self- determination.

Falling in love - Nomadic practices

Nomadic practices, following the case study of Lisbon Drawing Club, allow the understanding of several dimensions: (1) practices of mapping, (2) the establishment of connections between previously not related points (inclusion), (3) an initial step towards the start of a relation (resonance /affect). For this reason, nomadic practices coexist and prove to be necessary for the identification and maintenance of situated practices[3]. The research raises the hypothesis that they are, additionally, held by a community which is connected though a deeper relational bond (to be further researched). Lisbon Drawing Club activities comprise regular encounters for experimental drawing collective practice (on a weekly basis) and less regular moments (annual/biannual) of exhibitions, public initiatives, or artistic residencies. These moments are opportunities for assessment and reflection. Being part of these, I plan to regularly take part in initiatives and participate also as an observer/researcher, drawing specific input in the context of the research.

In these projects, the use of drawing and figurative drawing has been vastly used. As previously researched (Fernandes, 2021) and considering my personal set of skills, this have proven to be an efficient first step towards community engagement, creating mutual bonds of trust and generosity. After the initial propositions, projects were able to evolve into more complex forms of community organizing. Lisbon Drawing Club is currently a collective of 15 people who organized initiatives on a weekly basis, having involved more than 5000 participants until the present moment. The project also supported the creation of other Drawing Club collectives in Porto, Cascais and Barreiro, Portugal, and is also connected to the Drink&Draw Tallinn community.

Yet, even in such a project, overtly focused on practicing a skill we continuously obtain affect-related responses as answers the question “What did you learn?”. Examples of responses obtained on the participation form of the LISBON DRAWIG CLUB project in 2023 demonstrate the potential to affect and be affected by this experience on the participants. A few examples of answers collected state: “As an artist and a former care worker, it really held a positive impact on me. It gave me a positive feeling that this experience enriched everyone present.”; “To be able to give love through my drawing brings me a lot of pleasure”; “The session was enriching. I felt a lot of humanness throughout the whole session, it was extremely tangible and real”; “I think that both for me and my friend we learned to look at the patients in that hospital as "people". They were so kind and nice, we often judged them as "crazy", but all of us in the session looked the same” (referring to a session held at Lisbon’s Psychiatric Hospital). This feedback is also in line with Harmut Rosa’s process of resonance: a dual movement: af<-fection (being touched from the outside) – witnessing the model - and e->motion (giving a response and thus establishing a connection) – making a drawing of the model (Rosa, 2018). Under specific circumstances, individuals can open up to allow themselves to be touched or transformed by the experience of the world. In the context of a drawing session the act of engaging with the model, and to later be able to share the drawing with the model, returning the act, creates a cyclical form of resonance.

Finally, I hope to intertwine these concepts in the greater ecosystem of the research comprising my PhD studies at EKA, which will encompass 3 artistic research situated projects. Yet, before situatedness can be addressed, it was important to contextualize the role of nomadic practices, as it was empirically observed that they consist on an initial step in creating the conditions for situatedness to happen and also sustaining this situatedness. They can be perceived as practices which create a unifying principle between diverse settings. Other artists, such as Pablo Helguera mention the desire of creating a unifying factor in socially engaged projects, demonstrating it projects such as “The School of Panamerican Unrest” (2006), which took place along the entire American continent (following the Panamerican highway).  

The study of Lisbon Drawing Club project can be understood as an initial step towars understanding the role of love in art/economy projects. As pointed by Erich Fromm “The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way as if we want to learn any other art” (Fromm, 1956). Secondly, love can be perceived collectively, as Bell Hooks points: a “combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust" (Hooks, 2002), adding, "to love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds." (Hooks, 2000, p. 138). Finally, “A community, to be a whole, must also be an economy” (Berry, 2012).

Artistic Project: understanding and experimenting with drawing sessions in continuity

As the project is at its initial stage, the following parameters are in the process of planning of the artistic research.

(1) As an initial state of the research the purpose is to analyze Lisbon Drawing Club data on participation and participants’ experience (models, drawers, teams, hosting community), after the more than 3 years of developed drawing sessions. Data can be analyzed both qualitative and quantitatively. Description and diagrammatic drawing of the economic system behind the collective can be added. There should be established a metrics for analyzing the project over time, for a period of 3 years.

(2) Propose variation on the formats od Drawing Sessions. Additional forms of analysis (qualitative/quantitative) and reflection of experiments and for experiments.

(3) Proposing moments of participation, presentation, and discussion (16^thSAR Conference, Porto, 2025); (UNIDEE Ways of Becoming, Biella, 2024) with peers and artistic researchers, who can provide critical feedback, propose additional questions and review the artistic project.

Bibliography

Adams, T. E., Ellis, C., & Jones, S. H. (2017). Autoethnography. In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods (pp. 1–11). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011

Berry, W. (2012). It all turns to affection. Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. https://www.neh.gov/news/2012-jefferson-lecture-wendell-berry

Fernandes, L. (2021). Artes visuais, narrativas e comunidades. Uma reflexão em torno da arte socialmente implicada.

Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving.

Hooks, B. (2000). All about love : new visions. William Morrow.

Hooks, B. (2002). Communion: The female search for love. William Morrow Paperbacks.

Backhouse, R. E., & Medema, S. G. (2009). Retrospectives: On the Definition of Economics on JSTOR. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, N. 1, 221–234. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27648302?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents

Rosa, H. (2018). The idea of resonance as a sociological concept.

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3).