The Violence of Space: A Drawing-Based Approach to Violence between Body and Site

Abstract

This video paper is the result of a drawing-based research on the indirect violence that occurs between natural and architectural sites and bodies in the production of social space. It intertwines three different perspectives on a critique of violence in drawing contemporary practices: the radical nature of violence embodied in the language we use to define drawing; the process of spaces violating bodies and of bodies violating spaces. 

The paper focuses on two representational spaces and the events they generate: the 2014 eruption of the volcano Pico de Fogo in Cape Verde and its impact on the community of Chã das Caldeiras; the industrial architectural ruins of Oliva, a massive foundry in the North of Portugal that declared bankruptcy in 2010, revealing a vulnerable social interstice in the urban fabric. 

To address spatial violence, a different way of artistic engagement through drawing is proposed: one that replaces an aesthetic of distance – grounded on the objectification of space as a visual set for violence – with an aesthetic of material presence, based on a direct encounter with the indirect violence produced between bodies and places.