This last session approaches The Mapping Journey Project from a comparative angle. This should help students to see the artwork not only as a corpus text to be analysed, but also as a critical framework. It is also an opportunity to explore the context of mapping in more detail.
Exercises
– Introduce the students to Constellations, a series of silkscreen prints derived from The Mapping Journey Project. Contextualise the use of colour (references to Yves Klein), the intentional erasure (no landmarks or borders, sea & sky), and the exhibition format (prints constantly rearranged);
– Encourage students to take a non-linear comparative approach to the two artworks. Discuss how Constellations is able to inform and transform The Mapping Journey Project, even though it ‘derives’ from it;
– In pairs or small groups, ask students to consider differences in media support (prints x videos), aesthetic features (dotted lines x permanent markers) and language (minimalism and abstraction x appropriation and counter-mapping);
– Encourage students also to see the connections and similarities between both artworks. Draw particular attention to notions of process (visual translations of journeys), narrative (storytelling as a way to make sense of information), paratexts (what is outside/around the image and its frame) and agency (counter-mapping becomes the dominant language in Constellations);
– Wrap up this session and the module section as a whole with a reflection on the importance of studying representations of migration. Can conceptual artworks like these shed light on real contexts and experiences? If so, how? Try to prompt discussions around the power of collective imagination and narratives of resistance.
Secondary sources and additional reading
– Amanda Tavares, ‘Mapping Journeys, New Directions‘;
– Eric C. H. De Bruyn, ‘Beyond the line, or a political geometry of contemporary art‘;
– Diana Nawi, ‘Other Maps: On Bouchra Khalili’s Cartographies‘;
– Denis Cosgrove, ‘Maps, Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century‘;
– Ruth Watson, ‘Mapping and Contemporary Art‘.