ArtCarto (represented by Sharon Hayashi, Nick Lally, and Taien Ng-Chan) will present a walkshop at the North American Cartographic Information Society’s 42nd annual meeting at The Depot in downtown Minneapolis.
Mississippi Water-Map: An Acoustic Meander in Minneapolis is a collaborative site-specific walking and mapping workshop exploring the terrain and local knowledge of Minneapolis through experimental sound and sensory cartographic methodologies. Listening to the land and water as well as voices of communities, we will use intermedial mapping practices to foreground reclamations of space, narrative and memory.
The workshop will begin indoors at 9:00am and move outdoors at 10:00am. Bring earbuds/earphones, and wear comfortable walking shoes.
The Commission for Art & Cartography of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) seeks submissions for a special issue of the International Journal of Cartography to be published in the Spring of 2024.(1) We seek a diversity of contributions that explore how dialogues and practices in art and cartography can create generative points of contact. Submissions may take a variety of forms, ranging from full length research articles to shorter creative interventions that rely heavily on visuals and other forms of media.(2) Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Art practices that use concepts, grammars, or ideas found in cartography
Cartographic practices that are informed by dialogues or practices in contemporary art
Geographical visualization methods informed by humanistic modes of inquiry
Theoretical interventions that open new possibilities for art and cartography
Creative approaches to cartographic visualization
Mapping projects that draw from participatory art
Historical work that explores connections between art and cartography
Research that investigates how community groups engage with art and cartography
If you are interested in contributing to this special issue, please send an abstract of 200 words or fewer to taien[AT]yorku[DOT]ca by August 15th, 2022. Potential authors will be contacted by September 1st, 2022, and essay drafts for peer review will be due by January 30, 2023. If you have questions or want to discuss ideas ahead of the deadline, please email!
The Commission on Art & Cartography’s online workshop from the summer of 2020, called A Sense of Impending Doom: A Strata-Walk for Turbulent Times, caught the eye of editor Laura Bliss at Bloomberg’s CityLab. As a result, some of the maps from the Impending Doom workshop are featured in the new publication The Quarantine Atlas: Mapping Global Life Under COVID-19, along with an essay by Commission Chair Taien Ng-Chan about her own experiences dealing with the pandemic, the subsequent rise of anti-Asian hate, and the value found in mapping one’s own room. The book was published in April 2022 and can be found here: https://www.blackdogandleventhal.com/titles/laura-bliss/the-quarantine-atlas/9780762478132/
ArtCarto Maps in The Quarantine Atlas
Borrowing from (Xavier) de Maistre’s voyage around his room, we carried out a virtual workshop that took 30 walkers from around the world on a tour of their own lockdown spaces. They brought no luggage but two sheets of paper, a writing implement, and instructions to look at everything with the rambling curiosity of a traveler. The first task, as a sort of barometer of feeling, was for everyone to write down their fears and anxieties, which included everything from dictators, militarization and climate change to “loss of emotional connection” and “overwhelming online work.” On the back of that paper, we asked for their sources of comfort: protest, gardening, nature, reading, art, and alcohol. They then tore a small hole in a fresh sheet of paper to represent their locations in space, walked slowly around their rooms to draw their routes and objects that shaped their surrounding emotional landscapes. “Where are the anxieties located?” we asked. “Where do you find comfort? Reframe your view. Share with us the ground under your feet, the sky outside your window.”
The rough, hand-drawn maps that resulted hint at the rich emotions that fill our own interior spaces. In these maps, I can glimpse the lives of others through the squiggly black lines and rough edges that indicate where their bodies were located, where the windows and quiet spaces are for each. One map details a ceiling stain that speaks to worry, while another map confesses a love of the cardinals who hang out by the cornstalks in the backyard. The last task was for each person to fold, scrunch, rip and crunch their maps – a transformation of their intangible emotions into 3D paper sculptures, an act of catharsis. Some of them ended up a sharp jumble of edges like mine, others meticulously folded like irregular fans or energetically crushed into tight, crinkled-up balls. The maps were then smoothed out again and displayed by their makers onscreen, the shared act connecting us all in the virtual space of Zoom. (Excerpt from Taien Ng-Chan’s “Finding Home in a Locked-Down World” in The Quarantine Atlas, edited by Laura Bliss)
A big thank you to all who took part in the Impending Doom workshop, and especially to Jorn Seemann, Judith Franke, and Jennifer Coates, whose maps are featured.
The Commission on Art & Cartography hosted the Show & Tell Pre-Conference Workshop on Monday, Dec. 13th (Dec. 14th for our Australian members) and saw 12 fantastic, intriguing, thought-provoking presentations in “Pecha-Kucha”-like fashion, starting with (as Vice-Chair Sharon Hayashi put it) “the more-than-human, moving from larger time spans towards the urban, morphing through software experiments before the ending on more directly political spatial battles.” A wonderful experience for all (recording below).
Recording of the Pre-Conference Workshop of the 30th International Cartographic Conference (Florence, Italy) Organized by the Commission for Art & Cartography December 13, 2021 Presenters: Jorn Seemann, Joshua Singer, Taien Ng-Chan, Michael Trommer, Chelsea Nestel, Joanna Gardener, Kévin Pinvidic, Nick Lally, Sebastien Caquard, Elise Olmedo, Glenn Finley, Sheila Nadimi
The workshop used a MIRO board as a visual collaborative tool, where participants were invited to add comments even after the workshop, and can be viewed here: https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_koBWxGo
Although most ArtCarto members were not able to travel to the 30th ICC itself due to the ongoing pandemic, Sandra Ignagni was able to attend and to represent the Commission as Chair of the two Art & Cartography panels that ran on December 15th with 6-7 presentations each. Sandra noted that the presentations went fairly smoothly, that there was a technical coordinator in the room who ran the WebEx (in Italian) and helped troubleshoot a few very minor technical difficulties.
There were four varieties of presentations:
Fully recorded
Recorded with presenter joining remotely for the Q/A
Fully in-person
Remote presentation
In the afternoon we held our Commission on Art & Cartography Business Meeting, which gave an opportunity to discuss a few ideas for the upcoming year. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Zoom grid photo from ArtCarto’s 2020 workshop “A Sense of Impending Doom”
A Pre-Conference Workshop of the 30th International Cartographic Conference Organized by the Commission for Art & Cartography December 13, 2021 Synchronously ONLINE at 8-10PM CET (Florence, Italy) / 2-4PM EST (Toronto, Canada) / 11AM-1PM PST (Los Angeles, USA) / 6-8AM AEDT on Dec 14 (Melbourne, Australia) (Check your time zone) Zoom link will be sent before the workshop date.
The workshop will begin with a series of short (7-8 minutes) “PechaKucha”-like slide presentations* of your works-in-progress, project ideas, theoretical musings, or other research that might not be ready for the mainstage of the ICC. Or don’t present and join us as a viewer! Following these presentations, we will break out into group discussions, with the aim of generating feedback, creating new connections, inspiring new works, and exploring possibilities for collaborations, all with the potential of having your work featured in an upcoming special Art & Cartography issue of the International Journal of Cartography.
To participate, please RSVP to taien [AT] yorku [dot] ca with your name and a short description of what you would like to share (100-150 words, images optimal but optional). Note that registration in the main ICC Conference (which requires fees) is not required. This workshop is open to all and free of charge.
Deadline for REGISTRATION: December 1st, 2021
*A “PechaKucha”(™) is a lightning talk presentation that is 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, but we are only using this for inspiration rather than as a strict format.
We hope to see you at this synchronous global online event!
Thursday April 8, 2021 (12:00-13:30 EST): Mapping the Skin and the Guts of Exile’s Stories
Élise Olmedo – Banting Postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University
Sébastien Caquard – Associate Professor of Geography & co-director of the Center for Oral History and Digital storytelling (COHDS) at Concordia University
The last few months of social distancing and general uncertainty about the future have generated a new appreciation for collectivity, closeness, and community. As we are separated from each other and travelling is no longer a viable option, how can we find ways to share and connect through a sense of beingness, while remaining in the safety of our own homes?
The Art & Cartography Commission of the International Cartographic Society, in partnership with the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit, presented an online “walkshop” in July 2020, as part of the conference Drifting Bodies/Fluent Spaces. The event investigated the act of mapping and situating ourselves, confronting our anxieties, as well as tuning in to what brings us comfort in our own space. The group of 30 participants, located all over the world, connected and sensed each other in unique ways through a series of analog mapping exercises that took place in the virtual space of Zoom. Using simple tools in their vicinity, such as a piece of paper, a camera, and a marker, the participants captured their bodies in space, the sky above their heads, as well as their relationships and emotions to their environment.
Visit the website to view the traces and outcomes of the Strata-Mapping exercises, as well as the full video documentation featuring various perspectives – from the bird’s-eye view of the zoom grid to the close-ups of the personal and intimate moments.
It’s not too late and we hope that the archive will keep growing! Discover new and unique ways to experience mapping the space that surrounds you by following the set of exercises listed on the “Outcomes” page. Send your emotional and sensorial Strata-Map to hamiltonperambulatoryunit@gmail.com
Date: WEDNESDAY, JULY 22ND, 2020 Time: 7AM LOS ANGELES; 10AM TORONTO; 3pm GUIMARÃES (Portugal); 12AM MIDNIGHT MELBOURNE Place: Simultaneous world-wide Zoom & in Guimarães (please email walk.lab2pt@gmail.com to register if you would like to attend in person, outdoors and safely distanced)
HPU + ArtCarto Investigating the Impending Zoom
How do we sense and deal with impending doom in our everyday lives and in our creative work? Can sensorial and mundane art-making practices help us to map our way out? The Hamilton Perambulatory Unit (HPU), in partnership with the Commission for Art and Cartography (ArtCarto) of the International Cartographic Society, presents a Strata-Walk (Doom and Zoom edition) for turbulent times. This live, online event will begin with a video presentation/performance on the Strata-Walk, HPU’s framework of stratigraphic place-making and mapping, before turning the focus onto the digital and technological space that connects us. Using a system of prompts, Strata-Walkers map their environments in a performative gesture by turning their attention to one element of place, then documenting it in a Strata-Map. This experimental, emotional, ephemeral cartography relies on the body-as-sensor moving through space, as well as other techniques of reading, framing and re-framing one’s self and surroundings.
For this walkshop (part of the international conference Drifting Bodies/Fluent Spaces), four members of HPU and ArtCarto – located in Canada, the US, and Australia – will lead participants through an investigation of the digital strata of Zoom and the intimate, analog materialities strata of one’s room (if in lockdown, as many still are) or wherever one happens to be. Starting in the centre of our collective Zoom and doom, we will explore our embodied emotions, networked places, and live speculative imaginings, mapping our way out to find the sky above us all. The resulting collective mappings will be constructed into an ad hoc art exhibition and all participants will share credit.
Participants are asked to bring one or two sheets of blank paper, a black marker, a device with a camera, and the web-conferencing application Zoom pre-downloaded (can be on same device as camera, or ideally, a separate device). A Zoom link with password will be shared a day before the event.
Commission for Art & Cartography’s Preconference Workshop
Title: Reclaiming Through Mapping: The Olympic Sites of Tokyo
Date and Time: Saturday, July 13th (10am-4pm) – Sunday, July 14th (10am-4pm)
Place: Tokyo Metropolitan University, Akihabara Satellite Campus, Meeting room B
Call for Participation: The International Cartographic Association (ICA) Commission on Art & Cartography invites you to participate in their Pre-Conference Workshop “Reclaiming through Mapping: Olympic Sites of Tokyo.” Some of these spaces, including the main conference venue, are on reclaimed land or artificial islands in Tokyo Bay built out of waste landfill. This workshop investigates the question of how place is constructed and mapped, using an experimental methodology developed by the artist-research collective Hamilton Perambulatory Unit, who will lead a participatory mapping walk in Tokyo that looks to uncover the layers of urban development history of the 2 Tokyo Olympics and the high-growth (1964) and post-growth (2020) periods they represent. This interdisciplinary workshop uses hybrid spatial and sensory ethnography and intermedial approaches to map a site and distinguish the layers of time, history, materiality, and digital city-image. Participants will be asked to contribute to the final multi-media strata-map of Tokyo’s Olympic sites.
Workshop Description: To begin this two-day workshop, we will meet at the Tokyo Metropolitan University for short presentations to contextualize our experimental and sensory mapping methodologies, before continuing the discussion on the trains while heading towards the Toyosu fish market for lunch (45min from Akihabara). We will then visit the nearby construction site of the Athlete’s Village on Harumi Island while we give some background on the area, and spend some time mapping the site. On the second day, we will meet at one of the 1964 Olympic sites to further explore mapping methodologies before heading back to Tokyo Metropolitan University to share results. The data collected will help answer the following research questions: How does the official Olympic narrative affect the sites? How do experimental cartographies work to investigate how place is constructed?
Registration: The workshop is open to everyone with an interest in sensory mapping art practices and experimental cartographies. Registration is required and is free of charge. Please note that it is not necessary to be registered for the main ICC conference (which requires fees) to be able to attend the workshop. For more information or to register, please contact Taien Ng-Chan taien [at] yorku.ca or Sharon Hayashi hayashi [at] yorku.ca. Please include a short bio and indicate your interest in the workshop.
NEW: Creative Documentation Video (shot and edited by Sarah Choi)
In a morning we met at the Jefferson memorial. Mathilde Christmann and Elise Olmedo (and Mathias Poisson) took us to a multi sensory mapping activity. Following a map score methodology we walked around the site focusing on our emotions and perceptions and we then we mapped our experiences.
In the afternoon we went back to the Washington University Library and had two series of papers presentations followed by discussions and exchanges on multiple aspects of the relationships between maps and emotions. We kept the discussions going on a rooftop bar near the University. Now we need to decide what to do with all the great material presented and created during these two days…
ART & CARTOGRAPHY 