In the public humanities, counter-mapping and “radical cartography” are emerging as powerful tools to critique institutional authority and imagine alternative ways of thinking about place. Radical Cartography Now: Digital, Artistic and Social Justice Approaches to Mapping, to be held Friday, September 27 at Brown University, brings together historians, activists, social practice artists, digital humanists, and community members whose maps reveal new histories, new knowledge and new ways of co-creating artwork in and with communities.
Some of this work is driven by innovations in Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping technologies and their increasing ease of use, while other radical cartography projects are created by hand, often with the participation of artists or designers working with local communities. In the process, radical cartographers are changing the nature of maps, chipping away at what Benedict Anderson called “the alignment of map and [colonial] power,” and democratizing maps and map-making. Radical Cartography Now presents a range of speakers across disciplines who are charting a new direction in the public humanities today.
Check the conference website (brown.edu/go/mapping) for a program and a list of speakers.
