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Lecture Series
Shadows of the Mind: Drawing in Art and Science
Drawing is one of the most effective tools for understanding, expression and innovation in the sciences and arts. These three lectures, organised in association with Bristol’s Interalia Centre, reveal artists’, scientists’ and educationalists’ thoughts on drawing as a tool for observing and imagining our world.

Tuesday 23 January 6.30pm
The Power of Learning Through Drawing: Why Don’t Schools Get It?
Angela Anning
Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Leeds.
Children’s drawings show impressive capabilities of expressing highly personal representations of ‘what they know’ and ‘what they see’. As a challenge to schools, Professor Anning will explore how the culture of the classroom can switch on to the power of children’s learning through drawing,

Tuesday 30 January 6.30pm
Structural Intuitions: Space, Pattern and Visualization
Martin Kemp
Professor of History of Art, University of Oxford and author of the prize-winning Leonardo da Vinci, The Marvellous Works of Nature and The Science of Art, Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat.How has it been possible for artists to sketch out the shapes and structures of natural and physical forms long before they have been recognised by scientists? Martin Kemp will explore this question in terms of what he calls ‘structural intuitions’

Tuesday 6 February 6.30pm
Drawing in the Expanded Field
Deanna Petherbridge
Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art, where she runs the Centre for Drawing Research. Her field of practice is pen and ink drawing, but she has designed murals, curated exhibitions and written widely on issues of art and architecture. Her lecture will examine the role of drawing, its resurgence as an analytical and interpretative medium as well as importance of the ‘sketch’ within cognitive science as a spontaneous and unstructured way of working.