The class will run in three parts:
I. What is a map, anyway? Map-reading from a critical perspective, and some background on critical cartography.
II. Creative counter-mappings: In this section we'll look at counter-cartography, learn about some exciting projects combining mapping and activism, and scheme up some of our own.
III. How to make maps -- practical cartography. We'll look at GIS and non-GIS approaches to map-making, check out some open-source tools and data sources, and make some maps of our own!
[copied from Public School New York]
More often than not, maps are used as a base for our research and design, but we rarely wonder how they were formed, by whom, and for what purpose. Maps are subjective. They should be questioned in the same way that we question our elected officials. What is their hidden (or not so hidden) agenda? Who paid for them? Whose interests are they serving?
In drawing a map, we embed in it our political views, our observations and our informed choices. We draw attention to certain things and minimize the presence of others.
What’s missing in the map of a shopping mall?
When did New Jersey vanish from the MTA subway map?
Where is the REAL Green Line between Israel and the occupied territories?
And once we’ve figured out all that, how can we use our skills to transform the process of mapping into a new type of activism?
The class will explore several examples of mapping manipulation as well as mapping as a social activity in hope to generate new ideas and tools of intervention in the urban environment.