Context
Across different domains of knowledge and practice, mapping is a method that many use to make sense of information and communicate it to others. However expectations and conventions around mapping differ tremendously. While in cartography, mapping refers to specific techniques and concepts for representing information related to places, in the arts and humanities this terms is used more broadly and includes a diversity of practices and expectations. More than just data, artists and other creative practitioners express understandings, fears, hopes, emotions and perceptions about places and people through maps, and these dimensions are essential for fully understanding our relation to places in the world today. Exposing cartography to the mapping from the arts – and vice versa – might help to develop new ways of representing and understating information and places in depth.
To stimulate this interaction, the art and cartography working-group of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) is organizing the workshop “Mapping” Environmental Issues in the City: Arts and Cartographic Cross Perspectives. This workshop aims to encourage and explore the interactions between cartographers, artists, designers and any other area of ‘arts’ (poets, writers, dancers, gamers) who work in the various aspects of spatial representation. This interaction is envisioned as a way to stimulate the emergence of new forms of spatial expression that could contribute to a broader and deeper understanding of geographic phenomenon. In order to reach these goals, the workshop is designed to facilitate the production of diverse spatial representations of a specific database. The database selected for this workshop has been compiled to address environmental issues in the city of Montréal (Canada). This database includes data relative to health issue, socio-demographic profiles, air quality and industrial release in Montréal.
Submission process and important dates
In order to facilitate interactions, the workshop will include a limited number of participants. To participate to the workshop, each participant must submit a proposal describing her/his project by April 15, 2010 (500 words max.). The proposals must be submitted to Laurene Vaughan (laurene.vaughan@rmit.edu.au) and Sébastien Caquard (scaquard@alcor.concordia.ca). Each project must be somehow inspired by the database provided (e.g. mapping and sensemaking methodologies to represent geospatial data; production of complementary data; new ways of connecting these data to the reality, etc.). The range of expressions is unlimited and could include conventional cartography, community mapping, GIS analysis, graphic art, audio project, video installation, performances, etc. The proposal will be reviewed by April 30, 2010 and the selected participants will be invited to develop their project during the workshop. Please note that these proposals are initial propositions and ‘mapping’ responses to the database that if selected will be resolved in the workshop event. The workshop will be structured around activities designed to facilitate the interaction and the collaboration between the participants. It is expected that the outcome of the workshop will be the publication of an edited book.
Logistics
The workshop will take place from September 8th to 10th, 2010 at Concordia University (Montréal, Canada). The workshop will be free of charge, but the participants will have to pay for their food and lodging (a list of lodging will be provided). For more information please contact us.
Deadlines
March 20th, 2010: Call for proposals
April 15th, 2010 (extended to May 1st): Proposals describing projects are due (500 words max.). The proposals must be submitted to Laurene Vaughan (laurene.vaughan@rmit.edu.au) and Sébastien Caquard (scaquard@alcor.concordia.ca).
May 3rd, 2010: Proposals are selected
May 15th, 2010: List of participants and preliminary program are published on the web site
Sept. 8th to 10th, 2010: Workshop in Montréal
2011: Publication of the edited book
Workshop sounds great! Very difficult to make a proposal when the database is incomplete. Any chance of an extension?
I am not quite sure what would be a complete database!? (This could be one of the questions we could try to address during the workshop). We could certainly add some more sociodemographic data since they exist and they are provided by StatsCan. With regard to other data, they do not necessarily exist, when they exist, the owners do not necessarily want to give them away; When they are willing to give them away, they do not necessarily match the scale or quality of the other data, etc.
Anything in particular you would like to see in the database?