Collective Annotation Sessions

Since 2017, Zone Collective has been developing a method of collective annotation rooted in workshopping as a primary site of knowledge production. In Fall 2021, they began to share their note-taking process with the public in the Drawing the Archive performance-lectures, and have since continued to experiment with the gesture of ‘opening up,’ arriving at the Collective Annotation Session workshop form.

Beginning from the group’s archive of collective annotations on Yugoslav media histories, these sessions move out to engage with a selection of texts and materials specific to the locale of the gathering. Over a few hours, the materials are presented via overhead projector for group reading and discussion during which Zone Collective notates the collective conversation with diagrams and drawings. These notations then become a point of departure for participants to interact with the overhead projection where they are invited to map out the different frameworks of contingency through which they experience and understand cultural preservation and policy in their context(s).

For the Istanbul Gathering III (November 2022) participants engaged with a selection of texts on cultural policy related specifically to the Beyoğlu Culture Road Festival that was currently unfolding in the city. Participants in the session ranged from prominent local cultural critics, artists and architects, to international biennial visitors passing through.