Powerhouse, A Line, A Web, A World, installation shot. Photo: Hamish McIntosh. Courtesy: The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

A Line, A Web, A World is a constellation of drawings from the Powerhouse Collection that traverses thousands of years and refuses conventional definitions of what a drawing can be.

Drawings are an integral part of the creative process for humankind, from children, artists, designers and architects, to engineers, cartographers, mathematicians and scientists. This first in-depth look at drawings from the Powerhouse Collection embraces the democratic nature of drawing and considers the question of why we draw.

This exhibition presents 230 drawings including a 4000-year-old Sumerian cuneiform tablet; a 37 metre navigational chart of the Darling River (1870–90); Australian inventor Lawrence Hargrave’s childhood drawings; the Sun’s corona captured by a 19th century astronomer at Sydney Observatory; botanical drawings by Filumena March Phillipps (1880s); a wall drawing by Agatha Gothe-Snape, and digital drawings for Kaps Freed music composition (2016) and Untitled Goose Game (2019).