Interview with Stephen Farthing

Stephen Farthing RA, Rootstein Hopkins Professor of Drawing at the University of the Arts London, will be one of the keynote speakers at the Crossing The Line Conference in Dubai, UAE, at the American University in Dubai, in early November, 2011. The Conference is a joint project of AUD and RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. In this brief interview, the artist gives us some initial thoughts on drawing and on his participation in Crossing The Line: Drawing in the Middle East - intersections of transdisciplinary practice and understanding

What is the role of drawing in your own art practice?
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Stephen Farthing - I use drawing in two quite different ways, first to record, then to unravel problems, plan and strategize.

How do you see the role of drawing in your experience as an educator?

Stephen Farthing - In western culture the drawing class has I suspect been considered by most of its users part church, part gymnasium. During the latter half of the twentieth century most progressive western art schools replaced drawing with two new subjects , one was Art Theory and the other a craft related subject based on familiarizing students with the use of Lens/Scanner Based Technologies. Over time this shift in direction within the curriculum lead to a substantial decline in interest in things hand-made and personal, and it seems a surge in interest in Technological Interfaces and what I can best describe as Detached Randomness’s.

read the complete interview in the Panoptikon (click)

Crossing the Line Conference: Interview with Irene Barberis

Irene Barberis with one of her artworks
at Langford120 in Melbourne, Australia, 2011

How was the idea of the conference Crossing the Line conceived?

IRENE BARBERIS - I have been working in a global context with Drawing for many years – over the last four, my conversations have been, amongst others, with Professor Stephen Farthing from the University of the Arts London. In 2009 I brought Stephen to Australia through the Metasenta, to exhibit at its Gallery – The DrawingSpace, Melbourne which was situated in RMIT University, while I exhibited performative and more sculptural drawings in the UK, at the University of the Arts London and the Bury Museum and Art Gallery. In April 2010 RMIT hosted an international Drawing Conference ‘Drawing Out’ at which Stephen was one of the Keynotes and I was involved through the Steering Committee. When in Dubai in January of this year for an exhibition at Tashkeel Bastakia, it occurred to me/us through a dialogue with Dr Marcelo Lima and Associate Professor Julia Townsend, that a conference on Drawing in the Middle East would be of enormous benefit to the extended community, and would be a pivot for dialogue on the specificities of ‘Drawing’ – its transdisciplinary nature, the porosity of its context, its marvelous span of materiality, and the multi layered nature of its linage and character. Drawing is a continuum of idea and thought, process and manifestation; it has the capacity to ‘capture’ and be a doorway to most everything and is to my mind all-inclusive. This conference will stimulate and hopefully galvanize Drawing as a presence in the Middle East.


read the complete interview here: PANOPTIKON