DRAWING with PLACE, Creative Retreat

7 nights / 8 days in Italy’s undiscovered Molise region
Fri 09 Oct 2026 – Fri 16 Oct 2026
Led by artist, curator, and educator Tracy Mackenna
Book your place via the web page. No application required.

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Time and space, curated with care by award-winning educator and artist Tracy Mackenna, to explore drawing and mark-making in the remarkable National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise.

Our creative retreat gives you a period of dedicated time and space, providing a careful balance of guided workshops and uninterrupted personal time. It is designed to help you step out of your daily routine, to decelerate, so you can focus your energy through creativity and rest to heighten senses and increase inspiration.

DRAWING with PLACE invites you to take the time to slow down by experiencing and investigating place through drawing. All forms of drawing are encouraged, activated through experimentation, play, trial and error. Being and working in the ancient and contemporary environment of Molise will stimulate deep consideration of time, perspective, and personal and environmental well-being.

There are just six places available with participants housed in excellent accommodation in Collemacchia village, and superb studio spaces on hand.

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DRAWING with PLACE is a retreat that has been carefully designed to provide structured workshops that explore and question what drawing is and can be. It will suit all those who are developing, extending and challenging their drawing practices. Support and encouragement are at the heart of the week, under the careful guidance of Tracy Mackenna, curator of The Museum of Loss and Renewal. We welcome participants who think through drawing, and for whom drawing is a way to investigate and understand place, and from practitioners who have a strong interest in drawing as an area of practice.

The municipality of Filignano in Italy’s Molise region is a truly special place, with a unique mix of both calming and dramatic natural environments. The Creative Retreat is centred in the village of Collemacchia, home to Tracy Mackenna’s family for centuries. With virtually no tourism in the region, the area is remarkable for its unspoiled access to flora and fauna and world-class Samnite and Roman archaeological sites. The local community is strong and welcomes The Museum of Loss and Renewal’s participants whole-heartedly.

Nestled in the Apennine mountains, citizens have undergone waves of economic migration. This has resulted in a vibrant multi-lingual Italian community whose members move seamlessly between the village and their homes in e.g. Rome, Naples, Paris, Brussels, Philadelphia, Melbourne, Glasgow.

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Your Tutor
Tracy Mackenna is a highly experienced, award-winning artist, curator, educator, and publisher. Drawing and mark-making run through everything she does, including framed work for exhibition, large-scale site-specific installation, illustration, note-making and annotation. She works individually and in collaboration and her passion is gathering people together to create energy that leads to the unexpected. Through Tracy’s experience and generous approaches, she will share ways of working, uses of materials, and invitations to think and engage with the environment, allowing you to build on your own practices.