The invitation to place my work in the context of drawing was irresistible. For some years, I have situated my work as interventions in public space. I have created video works informed by silent cinema, made flat compositions of landscapes with a solitary figure gesturing ad infinitum. I use an absurdist narrative structure, creating an open-ended space where viewers can hang something from their own well of sentiment. I cherish using props, often plucked from the everyday, as an entry point for birthing a bizarre ritual. They are a collected auto-topography, a landscape of the self. On reflection, many were used to make marks, graffiti on walls, lipstick on tree trunks, and dust gathered and moved around with a broom. In Naarm, 2020 and 2021, we were mostly in lockdown. I did not realise until this time how much I missed working in the landscape. Moving through it and feeling the expanse of the sky is an important part of my practice. Walking and running through the landscape is an escape act, a quicksilver way to evade getting stuck in oppressive tropes, in reality. In my works, the performing figure runs out of frame, and the trace is all that remains. Tania Lou Smith February 2023 Moving Freely (Video Still), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.