The Art of Mapping exhibit

London is really the place where maps and artists get along quite well those days, as illustrated by the current exhibit on “The Art of Mapping” at the TAG Fine Art gallery. Through the work of more than 20 artists, this exhibit provides another evidence of the rich and complex relationships that visual artists have been developping with maps in the recent years. The exhibit is nicely presented in its companion booklet, introduced by a short text written by Katharine Harmon. So it really seems that this is THE place to visit this November, which has been confirmed by Bill Cartwright who had the chance to see it and who was really impressed by its quality.

The Art of Mapping exhibit takes place at the TAG Fine Art gallery in London (14 – 26 November 2011) and also includes some artists talks.

“Collaborative Landscape” by Flynn O’Brien

In his “Collaborative Landscape” project, artist Flynn O’Brien proposes to participants to create their own “walking maps.” This project was recently started in order to create an on-going series of landscape images through a collaborative process between Flynn O’Brien and participants from around the world.  Using a process that Flynn created and transcribed in a manual (Landscape Manual), the participants are asked to follow a series of steps in objectively collecting photographic information while also making subjective choices along the way in the creation of a final image.

While a number of subjective choices are made by the participants throughout the collaborative process, a strict set of rules are adhered to, creating a common visual language between images.  Through this common language, the participant’s relationship with that environment is defined by their experience within that space.  The goal of the project is to continue to expand the number of participants, in order to further define this field of exploration.