Topographies Of Feeling: Body, Memory And Trace At The Intersection Of Dance, Drawing And Videoart

Abstract

This article reflects on how artistic creation can operate as a situated, sensitive, and critical mode of inquiry. Drawing on the project Topografias do Sentir, developed within a postgraduate program in Art Education, at a Portuguese University, we explore the intersection of body, memory, and image through improvisation, drawing, and audiovisual composition.
Grounded in an a/r/tographic methodology (Barone & Eisner, 2012), this work unfolds as a co authored practice between two distinct but interwoven languages — dance and drawing — proposing shared creation as an epistemological space. The final video, approximately four minutes long, combines images of bodily transitions, hand-drawn elements on tracing paper, and a soundscape built from manipulated bodily and environmental sounds. The result does not aim to represent a gesture, but rather to inhabit it — suspended between what was and what might have been.
This proposal dialogues with authors such as Didi-Huberman, Lepecki, and Rancière, and also with emerging perspectives in critical artistic pedagogy (Sousa & Aristimuño, 2025). It further contributes to discussions on co-authorship, accessible technologies, and drawing as a trace of embodied thinking. In line with recent reflections published in Afluir (Morillo, 2022; Gonçalves, 2023), this article suggests that art — far from being merely form — can serve as a device for listening, questioning, and critical presence within educational contexts.