Close Looking and the Workings of the World

Drawing, Geography, and Everyday Life

Abstract

Decolonial Brazilian geographer Milton Santos (2021a) believed that space had become so compressed under capitalism that vast human networks run through even the most remote villages. As such, he believed that by looking closely at one's own place, one could come to know the workings of the wider world. What can place-based drawing reveal about the relationship between everyday lived experiences and larger forces that shape urban environments? How might sustained observation through drawing make visible the interaction between local particularities and global spatial processes? This paper addresses these questions by reflecting on drawings conducted for two place-based, open-ended artmaking projects in downtown Montréal, Québec, Canada. Informed by dialectical spatial theory, drawing-as-research, and applying fieldwork principles to built spaces, we focused our artmaking both within and at the border of two neighborhoods with stark class differences–The Shaughnessy Village, a multi-cultural, dense neighborhood, and Westmount, an upper-class, low-density independent urban enclave. By analyzing several drawings made in the context of this research and deducing four themes— Relational attachments: Horizontalities and situated perception; Daily rhythm through the interplay of objects and actions; Spatial restructuring and accumulated texture; And visible power dynamics in space—this paper examines the concrete, embodied, and abstract spatial insights this work revealed about urban use. Through this work, we argue that drawing in situ can extend beyond concrete and steel to provide insight into spatial networks that influence everyday life.