Uncharted Ways Through: Maps, Land, and the Image

Maps profess to act as an authority on the lay of the land. Utilitarian in nature, maps are historically seen as a tool for navigation and the establishment and maintenance of borders. Yet maps, as readily as other genres of art, have a point of view. They can imbue the viewer with a feeling and argue for a perspective based on what it includes and excludes, and based on its visual approach to conveying information. 

Maps tell stories. 

Artists have long used maps in their practice to convey how their lived experiences – past and present – are understood as having taken place within a specific location. Some artists create maps to imagine entirely new worlds, while others engage in the actual manipulation of land to draw attention to issues of space, placeness, and to expand the modernist conception of the boundaries of art. Regardless of medium or form, the artists in this exhibition are contending with what it means to be alive in this place, in their body, on this earth, in this universe.

This exhibition will take place in GRAM’s first floor galleries.