„Maps are neither mirrors of nature nor neutral transmitters of universal truths. They are narratives with a purpose, stories with an agenda. They contain silences as well as articulations, secrets as well as knowledge, lies as well as truth.‟
— John Rennie Short, The World Through Maps: A History of Cartography (Toronto: Firefly Books, 2003), p. 24.
Mapping and social change
Maps feature heavily in a variety of media; they appear in textbooks, on television, in print, and on the screens of our handheld devices. They are considered as objective and natural depictions of the world but in fact they are socially constructed images that influence the way we view and understand the world, create and maintain particular discourses about the reality.
What is more, these cartographic images are powerful objects that can be only viewed through the interaction of a range of mapping practices (e.g. naming, drawing lines and framing) and the intersubjective understanding between their creators and viewers. Through the use of colour, size, delimitation of space or fixed orientations maps provide viewer with an image of territories within it that is infused with power relations, revealing at every gaze the cartographer’s conscious or unconscious manipulation of the reality.
However, mapping contributes not only to the representation of physical space but equally to the construction of experiential realities. It is no wonder, then, that artists and activists readily engage in the practice of mapping.
This engagement “becomes a method to track the past, embody memories, explain the unexplainable” and manifest the latent*.
Since one of the purposes of education is to enable individuals to understand their personal — social worlds and cartographic images are active texts with the ability to promote social change, works of subjective mapping might play the role of landmarks in the learning process. That is why educators, teachers and youth workers are encouraged to develop a critical awareness of the mapping techniques used to construct narratives of individual and collective subjectivities which challenge dominant orders of space and time.
— Karolina Ufa, Nomadways team
Our Workshop
Artists, educators, architects, landscapers and activists have created adventure maps, emotion maps, exploratory maps, digital maps, olfactory maps, literary maps and much more. Why “subjective” maps? We create these maps in order to shake geographical conventions and propose alternative representations of the world in which we live, and to present the diverse ways of living and seeing the world.
During our workshop that took place in Brivezac (France), we brought 24 artists and educators to explore the potential of subjective maps. It was a remarkable opportunity to dive into mapping and all of its ways of looking at time and space, but also to meet the local community and show then a new look at the village the live in.
Look our Alex and Verena’s photos from the workshop here.
The Booklet
We created a little book to present some of the exercises we did at ‘Subjective Mapping’ and to give you the opportunity to experience the powerful process of mapping with your group. If you try some of them, please let us know! We are curious what creations will you have and how the process will go with you.
Éléonore Labattut about ‘Subjective Mapping’
Our trainer, alongside our Anne (the creator of Nomadways), Élé is an architect and geographer. She specializes in large-scale diagnostics and analyses and in assessing stakeholders’ roles in post-disaster contexts and crisis situations. She has also worked on implementing participatory housing and planning-related projects at neighborhood, village and city level.
She gave us many powerful insights about mapping and a good amount of inspiration every day. In the video (made and edited by our Verena Mans) you can learn more about ‘subjective mapping’ from her. The lovely music you can hear in the video is by our friends Tribal Veda.
The works presented here are a navigation through this workshop. A poetry map, song map, historical map, map of plants, map of monsters: new worlds are re- vealed behind everyday Brivezac! Immerse yourself in this geographical material and listen to the stories told by these amazing maps: you may hear the whisper- ing of the Dordogne, follow the trail of hidden treasures in Brivezac, or learn how to write in the landscape! Have a nice trip!
About Nomadways
We craft international workshops for artists, educators and youth workers. Together we create pedagogical artwork, share and invent practical solutions to social problems.
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