The Big Draw
July 2005 | The Shovel Down Project, Dartmoor, Devon
From 16th - 24th July 2005 the Shovel Down archaeological project staged a community arts event in conjunction with The Big Draw and National Archaeology Week. The event involved schoolchildren, Plymouth Further Education College and Higher Education students and well as visitors to the site, which is near Chagford inside the National Park.
The Shovel Down Project is an archaeological excavation involving the University Colleges of Dublin and London and University of Sheffield with the backing of the Dartmoor National Park, the Devonshire Archaeological Society and the British Academy. The project has been running for two years and last year staged a successful pilot Big Draw event at the dig followed by an exhibition at University College London. This year we will be building on this success.
Last October’s Big Draw offered over 1350 events across the country, to show that drawing can aid observation, communication and invention and, above all, give pleasure. Organised by The Campaign for Drawing, the Big Draw has a simple but ambitious aim - to get everyone drawing. The Campaign was initiated in 2000 by The Guild of St George, a small charity founded by John Ruskin, the great Victorian artist, writer and visionary. Ruskin saw drawing as the foundation of visual thought. His mission was not to teach people how to draw, but how to see.
The Big Draw at the Shovel Down archaeological dig will be coordinated by the artist Varvara Shavrova. She is an experienced art tutor who has run numerous public and community arts events. She tutors in the education departments of the Geffrye Museum, British Museum, Museum of London, and Hayward Gallery.
Previous Events
- Art and Archaeology Exhibition
- Earthscapes: Geology + Geography Seminar
- Touchstone
- Stonehenge Riverside: The Ventral Surface
- Another Proof of the Preceding Theory Screening at the Herzliya Biennale
- Ventriloquist
- Art and Archaeology Seminar
- Simon Callery Field Drawings
- Drawing Stonehenge
- Virtual World Exhibition: Stonehenge Riverside Project 2007 Artist Residencies
- Site Specific: Between Archaeologists and Artists
- Some Time Now
- Interferences - High Moorland Visitor Centre, 2006
- Interferences - offiCina, Beijing, China, 2006
- The Big Draw
- Shovel Down National Archaeology Week 2005
- The UCL Big Draw Event
Publications
- Documenting the Past - Cheshire Life Article, November 2008
- Drawing from the Past
- Drawing Time - British Archaeology Magazine Article
- South of Woodhenge. An Interim Report on the 2007 excavations
- Land Division and identity in Later Prehistoric Dartmoor, South-West Britain
- Recent Approaches to the Archaeology of Land Allotment
- Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK
- Drawing: The Purpose
- Theorising Tenure: A Landscape Analysis of Later Prehistoric Dartmoor
- Summary Report of the 2004 Excavations and Survey at Shovel Down
- Summary Report of the 2003 Excavations and Survey at Shovel Down
- Excavations of Bronze Age field systems, Shovel Down, Dartmoor, 2003