Spatial Thinking: "Drawing the Unknown". Keynote at "Gedankenräume". 05-08.02.26, ZHdK.
- Antonio Scarponi
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Spatial Thinking is an operative modality of epistemic design that uses drawing and spatial articulation as cognitive means to engage with what precedes language and definition.
In this sense, Drawing is a form of thought capable of engaging with the unknown before it becomes language. In reflective, artistic, and design practices, drawing acts as a cognitive medium that wrestles with what remains indeterminate. Drawing the Unknown therefore proposes drawing, in its relation to the page, as a spatial condition in which the not-yet-known can become thinkable — and shareable — and where new realities can be constructed.
My intervention will take place between 9.30-12.30 on the opening session of the symposium on the 05.02.26 at the ZHdK, Kunstraum.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Press Release: Thinking unfolds in images, concepts – and often also in spaces. In speaking and remembering, we draw on spatial metaphors to make the invisible and abstract graspable. Spaces of Thought is a transdisciplinary project between art and science. It explores how metaphors function as aesthetic and cognitive forms – how they structure our thinking, guide our perception, and shape our acts of remembering.
The symposium and the accompanying exhibition bring together voices from theory and practice that approach these inner architectures: the spaces in which we store knowledge, form ideas, and negotiate meaning. Five verbs form the foundation of the project: to orientate, to overwrite, to embody, to connect, to explain. They not only describe processes of remembering but also a stance toward thinking itself – as a movement through space, an action in the in-between, and an invitation to think along.
Concept & implementation: Martha Oelschläger / Graphics: Tim Frei / With: Christian Jany, Antonio Scarponi, Franziska Schürrmann, Egor Tatarenko, Irina Rüegg, Bernhard Siebert, Ulrike Meyer Stump, Thassiannira Araujo Sousa, Jonas Balmer, Dila Suay, Marsha Bradfield, Alissa Knopp.