Franz Erhard Walther in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist (Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, London), 

Franz Erhard Walther (b.1939, Fulda, Germany) is one of Germany’s most prominent living artists, having exhibited extensively across Europe since the 1960s and participated in four editions of Documenta during the 1970s and 1980s. Franz Erhard Walther: DRAWINGS - Frame / Line / Action / Drawn Novel will include ground-breaking work from the late 1950s, 60s and 70s together with the artist’s latest retrospective and autobiographical project – Dust of Stars. A Drawn Novel which traces the artist’s longstanding engagement with drawing as it informs the conceptual underpinnings of his work, interweaving with the mediums of sculpture and performance.

Coinciding with Drawing Room exhibition Franz Erhard Walther: DRAWINGS - Frame / Line / Action / Drawn Novel.

Franz Erhard Walther in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Drawing Act VI

Drawing Act VI  
NEW territories (new discoveries) 

A project with artist Shepherd Manyika and young people from The Blue Youth. The group explored Drawing Room’s exhibition UNBUILD: a site of possibility and experimented with ways to map the architecture of our new building with bodies, movement, mark-making, collecting, moulding, fossilising and sound-making! 

Let’s be silent and listen.  
Sit down, sit alone. 
What can you hear? 
Can you hear yourself?  
Make a list of what you hear.  
Quietly venture out into the gallery, reception, library and corridors.   
Are there different kinds of quiet?  
What sounds do we want to hear? 
How can we capture sound and make sound?  
Use the materials and make a sound piece! 
Record. 

Sound by Tamara, Daniella, Elijah, Richard, Lyna, Aya, Jayda, Faith, India, Alice, Kyan, Heidi, and Dariush. 
Edited by Shepherd Manyika.

Tom Morton in conversation with Brian Dillon, Wed 21 October, 2009, Drawing Room,

This in conversation is in conjunction with the exhibition  'Dune: An exhibition of a film of a book that never was', Drawing Room, 17 September 2009 – 25 October 2009 

The project is guest-curated by Tom Morton, Curator at The Hayward, London, Co-curator of The British Art Show 7 (2010 -11), and Contributing Editor, frieze magazine.

Brian Dillon is a writer and critic and UK editor of Cabinet magazine. His writing has appeared in The London Review of Books, The New Statesman, Modern Painters, frieze, Art Review and The Wire. His first book, ‘In the Dark Room’, won the Irish Book Awards non-fiction prize, 2006. His latest book is ‘Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives’ (2009).


Dune - Tom Morton in conversation with Brian Dillon

This in conversation is in conjunction with the exhibition 'Haluk Akakçe - Perfect Coincidence', 16 October 2003 – 23 November 2003 

Haluk Akakce in conversation with Alex Farquharson

Talk by exhibition curator Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith

This talk is in conjunction with the exhibition 'The Secret Theory of Drawing', 5 October 2006 – 25 November 2006 

The Secret Theory of Drawing

Esther Leslie in conversation with the artists Ann Course, Barry Doupé & Marcus Vater, Thursday 21 January 2010,
The Bridge Academy, Laburnum Street, Hackney, London E2 8BA

This in conversation coincides with the exhibition 'Shudder', Drawing Room, 21 January 2010 – 14 March 2010 






Shudder in conversation

Land Sings Back Curator Tour 13th October 2025

Director's tour and talk for 'Crossing the Circle: Philippe Vandenberg' at Drawing Room, 20 September, 2016.

Crossing the Circle: Philippe Vandenberg Talk By Mary Doyle

Annotations artist in residence Yu-Chen Wang in conversation with Outset Study librarian Yamuna Ravindran, August 2016. 

Yu-Chen Wang’s newly commissioned work for Outset Study at Drawing Room combines discoveries from a recent visit to the remote Taiwanese Pacific Island of Lanyu (literally translated Orchid Island) with her experience of open-ended reading sessions in the Outset Study.  More info on Yu-Chen Wang's project can be found here.

Annotations is a series of artist residencies resulting in new commissions for Outset Study. Supported by Veronique Parke and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Yu-Chen Wang in conversation

Graphic Witness artist Nidhal Chamekh and exhibition curator Kate Macfarlane discuss what happens to individuals caught up in political turmoil. How can drawing provide evidence of injustice, create powerful commentary and prompt social change?

Drawing as Graphic Witness: Nidhal Chamekh in conversation with Kate Macfarlane

Visual presentations of academic papers including ‘On the Drawings of Andrea Bowers’ by curator and writer Hannah Ellul; ‘Protest Drawings’ by artist Joy Gerrard; and ‘Nancy Spero: The War Series’ by art historian Rachel Warriner

Artists in Protest: Researching Artistic Engagement with Conflict and Injustice

Recording of Dr Emilia Terracciano discussing the work of Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi, whose works features in Drawing Room’s exhibition Everything we do is music.

Dr Emilia Terracciano discusses artist Nasreen Mohamedi

Audio recording of Laura Kuhn's talk at Drawing Room on 04.12.17
Laura Kuhn discusses the influence of Eastern Philosophy on American composer and theorist John Cage.

Laura Kuhn on John Cage

The End of Human Magic - artist David Musgrave and artificial intelligence researcher Alex Graves consider the limits of human expression and being. 
Record on Wed 20 June 2018

The End Of Human Magic .MP3

Coinciding with her first solo exhibition, The Exhausted Student, the artist discussed the themes in her work and the making of the exhibition with acclaimed writer Jennifer Higgie.

Recorded 18 February 2020 at Drawing Room, London.

Donna Huddleston Jennifer Higgie In Conversation

Drawing Room explores ideas around contemporary drawing and makes them visible in the public domain. 

As the only public and non-profit gallery in the UK and Europe dedicated to contemporary drawing, Drawing Room provides a unique resource for the promotion of drawing, its practice, theory and methodology.

The programme incorporates a wide range of ideas and media, from the traditional to the experimental, and is informed by contemporary artistic practice.  It supports the production of new work and acts as a catalyst to test the parameters of drawing, providing opportunities for artists, writers and curators to produce, examine and research contemporary drawing.

Drawing Room is now located in Bermondsey, south east London, in premises shared with its umbrella organisation, studio organisation Tannery Arts.

 Drawing Room was initiated by curators Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout to provide the major European resource for contemporary drawing.  It has delivered an ambitious international programme of solo and group exhibitions that have included established, emerging and historical artists.  Many of these exhibitions have toured to galleries and museums throughout the UK and beyond.

Since Drawing Rooms inception in 2002 it has been able to deliver an ambitious programme in large part through support from artists.  Since our first Drawing Biennial fundraiser in 2003, over 1,000 works have been made especially for Drawing Room, an endorsement of the value that artists place on the organisation.

Drawing Room

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