This first session would benefit from students’ preliminary independent research. Before the class, ask them to explore the installation shots, close-up images, and audio description available at the MoMA website. You might also want to ask them to read the accompanying essay ‘Disregard the Forms‘ by Quinn Latimer.
It is important to take into account that many students might not have experience of contemporary art or audiovisual analysis. If this is the case, make sure to introduce examples and techniques in this first session. We recommend focusing on four different areas: formal, content, context and critical.
Exercises
– As a first exercise, ask students to describe the artwork and share their impressions. This can be prompted with a still image of the artwork, since videos are not available online. Ask students to reflect on the title of the artwork in order to explore links to migration (journey), process (project/-ing), and cartography (mapping);
– Introduce the artist Bouchra Khalili and her practice. Contextualise her work in terms of imperial and colonial continuums, autonomous agency, international solidarity and citizenship. Discuss her formal approaches in relation to documentary aesthetics and storytelling;
– Consider the artwork through a larger historical context of borders and (im)mobility. Ask students to reflect on how The Mapping Journey Project sheds light on issues of colonialism (the map as a tool to explore and dominate territories), the ‘migration crisis’ (drawn routes as indication of a bigger picture to incidents at sea) and agency (counter-mapping, freedom of movement, personal narratives).
Secondary sources and additional reading
– Quinn Latimer, ‘Disregard the Forms: Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project‘;
– Diana Tietjens Meyers, ‘No Safe Passage: The Mapping Journey Project‘;
– Maëline Le Lay, ‘Cartographier les récits de migrants: Autour de The Mapping Journey Project de Bouchra Khalili‘;
– Jeu de Paume, ‘Bouchra Khalili au Jeu de Paume Concorde-Paris‘.